Category Archives for Podcast

Killer SEO Tips to Get 500k+ Page Views a Month w/ Debbie Gartner

What this Million Dollar Blogger would do Differently if she Started Again in 2020 w/ Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Imagine if you could fast forward 5 years from now…

You’ve created this blog that makes over $1 million a year and you’re travelling the world on a sailboat.  

You have systems in place so that you can step back from your blog when you want to. And your work is helping millions of people. 

Now imagine you could travel back in time to today. You could give yourself the advice that you needed to make this happen and sidestep a load of silly mistakes you made on the way.

Well, time travel isn’t possible (yet!)

But speaking to Michelle Schroeder-Gardner is. She started her award-winning blog Making Sense of Cents in 2011 and has gone on to earn over a million dollars per year for the last few years in a row.

And she is about to walk you through some of the things she would do differently if she had to start over today. 

In this chat we talk about:

• Why Michelle and her husband lived in an RV and now are on a sailboat.
• The 4 things Michelle would do if she had a new blog.
• How anyone can use affiliate marketing to boost their income.
• The importance of networking and how you can do it right.

Listen on Apple Podcasts/ Google Podcasts

Useful tools and tips mentioned in the podcast

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There are so many amazing takeaways and useful tips from this chat with Michelle.

To take everything in you really have to listen to the full podcast above.

But there were a few things that she mentioned that had really helped her or what she would do sooner if she started again.

Here are some of the tips and tools that Michelle recommends:

• FinCon (an awesome the BEST Financial Conference- it’s an amazing place to network for bloggers)
• Bobby Hoyt’s Facebook Side Hustle Course (FB ads)
• Mike Pearson’s Stupid Simple SEO
• Focus on building an email list (there was no course mentioned here, but a big talking point)
• Michelle’s Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course
• Pinterest – continually updating images (check out this amazing podcast and article on pin design if you want to learn more about this)
• Simple Pin Media– outsource pin scheduling

Note- these are recommendations from Michelle (the blogger who makes over 1 million dollars a year) none of these are affiliate links as I have not personally taken these courses (yet!)

Popular related content:

• 25 Proven Ways to Make $1,000+ a Month Online
• Blog Income Reports Study- How the 7 Best Niches Make Money
• How do Bloggers Make Money?

Full Michelle Schroeder-Gardner Podcast Transcript

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Michelle Schroeder-Gardner Podcast Summary

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If you want to get in contact with Michelle then check out Making Sense of Cents and you can find her social media accounts in the top right corner.

So here are the 5 key takeaways that I took from this chat with Michelle:

1. She would spend more time building her email list earlier if she started again today
2. Find what serves your audience and offer it to them using affiliate marketing
3. Find your top 10 performing posts & optimise with solutions that can help i.e. affiliate links
4. Learn more about SEO and implement this sooner
5. Network with other bloggers and online entrepreneurs

But I’d love to hear from you…

Did you pick up on anything different or did Michelle say something that really hit home for you?

What were your main takeaways from this chat? Drop a comment below and feel free to share your own blog too!

How This Policeman Quit His Job to Work Less and Make More: The Savvy Couple Podcast

Have you ever wondered how some people seem to have all the time in the world and accomplish so much?

It can often feel like you’re just working harder and harder but not seeing the rewards. If anything you’re putting more time in and receiving the same money in return.

But it’s possible to completely change this by shifting your mindset to focus on one thing…

What is your effective hourly rate (EHR)?

Kelan from The Savvy Couple has completely changed his life through blogging since 2016. His wife, Brittany, and himself have created a 6 figure business with no prior experience in blogging, marketing or selling.

Another completely normal couple who have done extraordinary things to help others manage their money and time way better.

In this podcast with Kelan Kline from The Savvy Couple, we chat about:

• How Kelan’s EHR has moved from $26 to over $300 in 3 years
• Why Kelan gave up his dream job- and was OK about it
• How the first year blogging is a real grind that people often overlook
• The best thing about being a full-time blogger

Listen on Apple Podcasts/ Google Podcasts

Handy tools and resources mentioned in the Podcast

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There was a lot mentioned in the podcast but here are some of the key ones…

• Work Less Make More (non-aff link)- I’ve since read the book (audio & kindle) and ended up taking so many notes and doing the tasks. The EHR is a game-changer and James Schramko has so many tips on how to increase this that is perfect for bloggers/ online business owners.
• Pinterest scheduler- Tailwind (this is an affiliate link- you can try scheduling 100 pins for free and if you upgrade you get a $15 discount)
• Keyword finder– a keyword research tool
• Ad espresso– Facebook ads (I never heard of them but they sound really cool. You can plug in 5 different headlines, descriptions, images and it works out the best combination for you… Kelan is smashing FB ads!)
• FB Side Hustle– Bobby Hoyts FB ads course

None of the others are affiliate links as I have not personally tried them. But Kelan certainly knows what he’s talking about!

Find out all of Kelan’s best blogging resources here to see what else The Savvy Couple recommends.

The Savvy Couple Podcast Transcript

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Related popular content:

• 25 Proven Ways to Make $1,000+ a Month Online
• Blog Income Reports Study- How the 7 Best Niches Make Money
• How does Blogging Make Money?
• How to Use Pinterest for Beginners

Get in contact with Kelan

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You can check out Brittany and Kelan’s work on their website The Savvy Couple.

Also, connect in their super active and helpful Facebook groups: Blogging with purpose or their personal finance group The Savvy Couple (Family. Finance. Freedom). They really do go above and beyond in here!

Kelan and Brittany also share exactly what they have done to become 6 figure bloggers. If you have a blog then check out their course, Blogger’s Secrets:

There is a lot of detail in this course with exact tips on how to help your blog make money. I particularly liked the information and advice on email marketing and sponsorships!

What did you take from this podcast? Have you already started a blog? Drop a comment below & feel free to share your blog

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!

How to use Pinterest for Blogging: Ultimate Beginners Traffic Guide

In the spirit of full transparency, know that this article on how to use Pinterest for blogging contain 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 the full disclosure policy.

So you spend all this time researching and creating the most amazing blog post.

1 week later you check your Google Analytics and you see this…

via GIPHY

Where is all of this traffic everyone raves about?

Is there any point in writing this stuff if nobody is reading it?

But getting a lot of traffic to your blog doesn’t have to be this hard. There are some ways that are better at driving traffic than others. And one of them happens to be using Pinterest for bloggers.

This post will show you exactly how to use Pinterest for blogging to traffic to your website on tap.

There are 3 main sections:

1. How to set up a Pinterest account for your blog
2. How to design beautiful Pinterest pins
3. Pinterest marketing strategy for bloggers

Why should bloggers use Pinterest?

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Did you know Pinterest is pretty different from most forms of social media?

It sounds strange but hopefully, this will help explain why:

• Facebook = user to user
• Instagram = user to user
• Twitter = user to user
• Pinterest = user to content

Basically… most social media platforms try to keep you on their own platform (if you’re like me you’ve probably seen 3 hours disappear scrolling down Insta!)

However, Pinterest works differently.

The sole purpose of Pinterest is to help users find the content they are looking for and send them off to the best place (aka your blog!)

There’s even a “search bar” at the top of Pinterest for people to look for something…

Funny enough, this is actually very similar to Google and you may know a thing or two about the beauty of getting ranked using SEO.

But… Google can be a tough beast to crack and can take months or sometimes years to rank for certain keywords.

And this is where Pinterest for bloggers comes into its own…

Pinterest does not care how old your blog is or how many people link to it. All it wants to do is send its users to the content that they are looking for!

So now it’s your job to make sure you are providing the “pins” and content people are looking for on Pinterest.

Understanding Pinterest Demographics

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So now you understand how Pinterest works a bit more.

But who is using Pinterest and why?

This may not seem relevant but it can impact a lot of decisions for your blog when you understand this a bit more.

Pinterest is still mainly used by women (around 80%) but 40% of new sign-ups are men.

As you can see in the infographic above most users are older than 25 and 50% of Pinterest users have children.

Best Pinterest Categories

This means there are 4 categories that do very well on Pinterest:

• Recipes
• Home decor
• DIY crafts
• Women’s fashion

If you have a blog that relates to any of these categories, it can really help to get more traffic from Pinterest.

Now I can almost hear your mind saying… “but I have a personal finance blog, that’s not possible”.

Well, amigo, there is no such thing as “not possible”! You could potentially write about:

• 25 delicious recipes to cook at home to save money
• 9 best budget home decor tips
• 15 cheap DIY crafts you can try with your family

Do you see how…

Last awesome tip…

Pinterest users LOVE “how to” posts and “listicles” (see examples above).

So shall we find out how to use Pinterest for blogging?

Part 1: How to set up a Pinterest account for your blog

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Step one is to make sure your Pinterest profile is set up in the best way to help you get your pins seen.

There are 4 sub-steps to getting this done…

1. Get a Pinterest business account & enable rich pins

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If the goal is to get traffic from Pinterest to your blog, then this is a crucial step.

It’s far better to use a Pinterest business account vs personal account.

There are a few reasons for this:

• You can use Pinterest analytics to see your best-performing pins
• Your website link & profile photo is automatically on your homepage and every pin with your content
• Your account will have a special profile and allow you to control your branding more

It’s pretty straight forward to get this stage done but here are a couple of links that can help…

• Learn how to claim your website and get a business account here.
• You can enable rich pins here (lets you add more detail and a description to your pins)

Step one for using Pinterest for bloggers is done!

2. Pinterest profile photo & name

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So you may think this step is pretty straight forward.

But many people get this step wrong when using Pinterest for blogging!

First of all, many people suggest you use a picture of your face to help people relate to you as a person. Personally, I don’t think you need to worry too much about this, but the profile picture is important!

As Pinterest is still mainly used by women it’s a good idea to use a happy picture of yourself if you’re a woman, or a couples picture if you’re a man.

There are plenty of accounts that do great by using a logo. The important thing is that the picture is clear and easy to see on a mobile device.

Here are two examples of accounts I have…

You should also make sure your name includes some keywords that relate to your blog too!

3. Pinterest bio

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Now we’re really going to learn how to use Pinterest for business!

These next two steps can seem quite boring, but they are mighty important!

Make sure your bio includes some keywords that relate to your blog.

But avoid “keyword stuffing” (listing keywords).

Make sure you use full sentences to add in your keywords naturally.

For example…

You can also use a freebie offer in here, but it’s certainly not necessary as your profile is not the main place that people will look at. They just want to see your pretty pins!

4. Pinterest boards

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That sneaky tip already mentioned comes in super handy here.

You want at least 10-15 boards relating to your content.

Obviously the more niche your website, the better it will do at ranking for certain keywords in the long run. But that’s a whole other decision for you when you choose your niche originally.

Once you have those boards set up, your aim is to get 50 good quality pins into these boards.

How do you find good quality pins?

Well, knowing a few “leaders” in your niche will certainly help.

You can find out about who some of these may be in this blog income report study that looks into 57 blogs in 7 different niches.

Do Pinterest board titles & descriptions really matter?

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Here is your second sneaky tip…

These probably matter more than anything else you will learn on this page on how to use Pinterest for blogging.

They are crucial for your Pinterest SEO, which we will get onto later.

Just remember to make sure you are not “keyword stuffing” by listing a load of keywords. Write in full sentences and naturally place them in…

Part 2: How to design a Pinterest pin

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If you have already tried using Pinterest marketing before, then I would bet my bottom dollar this is where you are going wrong.

Why?

Because it’s what I was doing wrong when I wasn’t seeing any traffic from Pinterest!

Simply put, if people do not stop and look at your pins, you won’t get any saves or anybody clicking on your pins.

That means no Pinterest traffic!

1. What does Pinterest Pretty mean?

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If you have ever used Pinterest before you probably know that some pins catch your eye.

Some pins stand out and make you want to find out more.

For example, if you type in “Pinterest for bloggers” on Pinterest, these are the results that come up…

You can see there is a clear design and colour scheme that people are using for this keyword. The idea is to make something that stands out from the crowd…

But some stand out in a bad way that makes you scroll right on past.

The difference is that the pins that stand out and make you want to click are “Pinterest pretty”.

Typically that means the pins will have the following elements:

• Vertical (2:3 ratio i.e. 600 x 900 px)
• The image is clear and relevant
• Text overlay (usually an intriguing title)
• Big, clear, easy to read words (especially if using mobile devices)
• Warm colours tend to do better (pinky/ red vs blue)

These are just generic Pinterest tips, but you will have to play around and use trial and error to figure out what works best.

2. Basic graphic design tips

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If you’re like me, you would like to know the easiest design tips to make the biggest positive impact on your pins.

Here are 5 killer tips, from a professional graphic designer, that will make your pins go from zero to hero quickly:

1. Proximity (each element should be in the same area of the pin)
2. Alignment (left, centre, right, justified… don’t mix and match)
3. Repeat colours and fonts
4. Contrast (colour, size, shape, space)
5. Hierarchy (make the most important things stand out first)

The good news is you don’t need to be a professional graphic designer to understand the basics and make great pins.

Using the example above it’s possible to make this pin “pop” and stand out even more in a “graphic design beautiful” way…

Typically this is where a lot of bloggers go wrong (myself included when I started using Pinterest!)

If your pins are not pretty enough or don’t stand out, you will never make people click on your pins…

You can learn more detail about the best graphic design tips here.

3. How to create a Pinterest pin on Canva for your blog post

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There are so many tools that exist to help you design your pins.

I know people that use PicMonkey, PowerPoint, Snappa or Photoshop.

However, if you are new to graphic design the only tool you need is:

• Canva

It’s free, easy to use and you can create templates to save so much time.

Here is Kristin (the professional graphic designer on a previous podcast) to walk you through how you can use Canva to create pins…

4. How to pin your blog post on Pinterest

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There are different ways you can actually get your pins for your blog post on Pinterest.

You probably already know a few ways but there may be a sneaky time-saving way that you could learn here:

• Use the Pinterest Chrome extension
• Use a social share plugin (i.e. Social Warfare or SumoMe)
• Add directly to Pinterest from a URL
• Upload a pin on Pinterest
• Schedule pins using Tailwind
• Pin using the Tailwind Chrome extension

You can learn more about these ways in how to create a pin for Pinterest.

But here is a quick video to show you the amazing Tailwind Chrome extension method that can help you pin hundreds of pins in a few minutes.

It’s a massive time saver!

If you really want to increase your traffic from Pinterest, then Tailwind can really help to automate and be more deliberate with your pinning strategy.

So this leads on nicely to…

Part 3: Pinterest marketing strategy

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So you’re probably starting to wonder how you can get traffic to your blog from Pinterest.

This is often the part that most people get hung up on and think…

“Maybe there’s some secret strategy that I’m not using?

And this person says they only pin manually and they get loads of traffic!

Ah, maybe I need to use Tailwind Tribes way more!!”

However, there is a reason why your pinning strategy is part 3…

It’s probably the least important!

If your account is not set up correctly, or you are not designing beautiful pins, then nothing you do in this section will help.

STOP!

Now, re-read that last sentence.

1. How to use Pinterest SEO (search engine optimisation) for Bloggers

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Did you know there are 2 ways that people find content on Pinterest?

1. Browsing and seeing something
2. Searching for a “keyword”

This is the most important “strategy” that you can use on Pinterest. Using Pinterest SEO means you can go from having a few people clicking on your pins to having tens of thousands of Pageviews every month.

The idea is very similar to Google SEO.

Your pins can “rank” near the top of a certain keyword search on Pinterest. Just like this…

Every time you pin something to Pinterest you can use “keywords” to help people find your content.

Here are the main places you need to make sure you have your keywords:

• Words on your Pin images
• Pin title
• Pin descriptions (enabling “rich pins”)
• Pinterest board (choose the most relevant board first!)
• Board descriptions
• URL of your post
• Words on the blog post itself

Pinterest’s algorithms are becoming smarter all the time.

Just help them understand what your pin is about like this…

If you can make it clear to Pinterest what your pin is about and make them Pinterest pretty, then Pinterest will eventually reward you by placing your pins near the top of the search results.

And that means traffic every month… for free!

2. How often should you pin on Pinterest for Blogging?

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This is one of the most common questions.

The simple answer is as much as possible without spamming the same pins to the same boards.

The answer you are probably looking for is at least 15 pins a day.

Why 15?

Because Pinterest loves content!

More specifically, Pinterest loves NEW content.

If you are not putting pins out there with a new Pinterest account, you will find it hard to get anyone to see your pins.

It’s especially important to pin good quality pins and content that is not your own at the beginning. Find the leaders in your niche and check out their accounts as a good place to start.

Rather than getting hung up on how many times to pin focus on only pinning great pins to relevant boards. If you only have 3 yoga boards then only pin a yoga pin to those boards.

Less is sometimes more!

3. Pinning at the right time

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This is actually a pretty important one.

You can use data to help decide the best times to pin to Pinterest.

It’s so much better to pin at times that people are actually on Pinterest. Typically that means do not pin during American working hours!

The most active time on Pinterest is from 8-11 pm in the USA, due to the most popular demographics of the users on Pinterest.

There are tools that you can use to find out when your audience is most engaged with your own pins.

This leads on nicely to…

4. How to automate Pinterest

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There’s really only one tool to recommend as a Pinterest scheduler any more:

• Tailwind (try 100 pins for free with this link and get $15 off if you upgrade to the pro version)

Here are a few reasons why using Tailwind is so beneficial:

• Pinterest accepts Tailwind as an official partner
• Tailwind creates “fresh pins” each time you schedule (Pinterest loves fresh pins!)
• Optimise your whole schedule (saves time and makes your plan so much more specific and effective)
• Pin at the best time of day (it even recommends time slots for you… this is perfect for me who lives in Qatar and has an audience active mainly around 3 am-6 am)
• Better analytics than Pinterest (see the above screenshot)
• Tailwind tribes mean you can get relevant accounts to pin your content and you return the favour!

There are too many benefits of using Tailwind to get into them all right now. All you need to know is that if you’d rather not spend all of your time on Pinterest and grow your traffic, Tailwind will help you do that.

5. Manual pinning vs schedule

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It really isn’t better either way!

There has long been this debate but it has been proven that there really is no difference.

Some people swear by manual pinning.

Others don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t use a scheduler.

Here are the main differences though:

• Manual pinning is free, using a scheduler like Tailwind will cost around $110 a year
• Tailwind saves time and can help you pin to a plan much better

If you do manually pin, you will most likely need to create a spreadsheet with what pins you want to pin to what boards and tick it off as you go.

It is possible and some people love to have control of exactly what is being pinned and when.

However, I’ve personally tried it and it becomes super time consuming and confusing (especially when you live in another time zone!)

When you have numerous pins for each blog post it can become tricky to stay on top of it.

Using Tailwind means you can set up exactly what you want to be pinned at the exact time. The best thing is, you can be asleep or on a flight and your pins still go out at the best times.

6. Do group boards still work?

---

Yes.

But not how they once did.

If you read anything about Pinterest from before 2019, chances are you would have heard the advice…

Get on as many group boards as possible and pin to them like crazy.

The truth is… this can actually hurt your account now.

However, if you have a brand new account and you want to reach more people quickly, then good group boards are crucial.

Here are a few tips to find these great group boards:

• Look for the leaders of your niche on Pinterest
• Check out the group boards they are part of
• Only apply to specific group boards i.e. “lose weight” is better than “best life advice from my favourite bloggers”
• Check the quality of pins in the board (are they Pinterest pretty and have people saving them?)

Find out more about this in the 5 Pinterest hacks.

Once you find them, it’s worth trying to actually reach out to the person who owns these boards. Check out their website, comment, share and message them to see if you can help them in any way.

If you connect with them personally it’s much easier and more effective to join their boards eventually.

Is this as easy to do?

No.

Is it worth it?

It depends on how seriously you take your blog!

Check out the short video below to check if you are on good group boards or if they may be harming your account…

How to use Pinterest for blogging summary

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So there you have it.

Everything you need to know on how to use Pinterest for blogging to drive traffic to your website for free!

If you’ve just skipped to the end to find the main points summarised, I won’t disappoint you:

1. Make sure your account is set up for keywords related to your blog (find keywords using the Pinterest search bar and see what it auto-suggests)
2. Use basic graphic design principles to make your pins sexy (if you’re struggling for traffic, this is probably where you are going wrong!)
3. Focus on optimising each pin for SEO

You can spend years down some rabbit hole looking for the perfect pinning tactic.

But if you focus on these 3 steps you will get more traffic to your blog than most people could dream of.

Be sure to pin this page so you can come back to it any time…

How Brie Uses Pinterest to Work From Home w/ Brie Dietrich

You probably know that it’s possible to use Pinterest to get blog traffic.

But did you know it’s actually possible to make money just by using Pinterest?

By learning some of the basic principles of Pinterest it’s possible to provide a service that so many bloggers are looking for…

Helping them get more traffic!

That’s exactly what 22-year-old Brie has managed to do to quit her full-time job and use Pinterest to work from home.

In this podcast we chat about:

• How to set up your Pinterest account as a blogger
• What makes some pins go viral and others flop
• Some of the sneaky Pinterest tactics that Brie uses
• The services Brie offers to work from home on Pinterest

Listen on Apple Podcasts/ Google Podcasts

This is part of the Pinterest podcast series:

1. Using Pinterest SEO to drive 150,000+ page views a month
2. How to design Pinterest Pretty pins that go viral
3. Setting up your account and your Pinterest strategy
4. How to use Pinterest for Bloggers: Ultimate Pinterest Traffic Guide

How to use Pinterest for Bloggers to get traffic

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There are some key aspects of using Pinterest for bloggers that are covered in this podcast.

It includes:

• How to set up your Pinterest account
• Using keywords in your bio and group board descriptions
• Finding great pins that you can share for a new account to attract the right audience
• How to create beautiful pins that people want to click
• Some amazing Pinterest marketing strategies

There is so much value packed into one chat from lessons learned from hundreds of dollars worth of Pinterest courses.

Popular related content:

• 25 Proven Ways to Make $1,000+ a Month Online
• Blog Income Reports Study- How the 7 Best Niches Make Money

Podcast Transcript: How to use Pinterest to work from home

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Get in contact with Brie

---

You can find all of the contact information for Brie at beyondaprettyblog.com

You can see her pin portfolio so you can get a feel for the exact service she could also provide you if you are looking to outsource your Pinterest marketing.

Here are some examples of her “beyond pretty” pins!

What did you learn from this chat? Have you got any Pinterest marketing tips for bloggers that have worked for you?

Be sure to check out the ultimate guide to using Pinterest for bloggers to find out how you can skyrocket your blog traffic.

How to Create a Pin for Pinterest: Design Viral Pins Quickly W/ Kristin Rappaport

Struggling to get any real traffic from Pinterest?

Most bloggers know that Pinterest can be a great source of free traffic. But it can often feel like you are putting in a lot of time and effort and not seeing results.

Did you know that your Pin design is the main factor in someone clicking on your pin?

And you don’t need to be a graphic designer to create amazing pins. Just by following some basic design principles you can create some viral pins quickly.

This podcast with Kristin Rappaport from Applecart Lane will show you exactly how to create a pin for Pinterest that people will actually stop, save and click.

Listen on Apple Podcasts/ Google Podcasts

Why graphic design matters

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If you’re like me you’ve probably spent hours designing pins only to find that nobody is clicking on them.

You’re left feeling like…

via GIPHY

So you go down the rabbit hole of thinking…

“Maybe my pinning strategy is wrong.

Or maybe I need to use Tailwind Tribes more.

No… I need a manual pinning strategy! That will fix it!!“

Well here’s the brutal truth:

Your pin design is probably terrible!

When you don’t create “Pinterest pretty” pins, people won’t even stop to look at them.

FACT!

Simply put… your graphic design matters if you want to get traffic from Pinterest or make your blog look professional.

But you don’t need to hire a professional or become a full-time graphic designer to make this happen. There are some simple tips you can learn right now to improve your Pinterest game quickly!

Best design tips: How to create viral pins for Pinterest

---

So you’re probably still thinking…

“But I don’t have an eye for design.”

It doesn’t matter!

By learning the simple design principles below, it’s possible to quickly improve your design skills to create pins that grab everyone’s attention.

Basic Pinterest design rules

---

There are some basic Pin design rules that you need to know.

This is just Pinterest best practice and will help you get those “Pinterest pretty” designs:

• The pin should be vertical (2:3 ratio i.e. 600 x 900 px… but you can play with the size)
• The image should be clear and relevant
• Text overlay helps get more clicks
• Write big enough for people to read (especially if using mobile devices)
• Warm colours tend to do better (pinky/ red)
• No pictures of someone looking at the camera

Now that’s covered let’s get to the juicy part…

1. Proximity

---

Proximity is basically the spatial relationship between the different elements in your design i.e.

• Header
• Subheader
• Call to action (CTA) i.e. click now to learn more
• Picture of a freebie

All you need to know is that elements that belong together, stay together (I mean… should be close to each other.)

And other elements should clearly be separated.

The below image shows a poor design on the left and a great design on the right!

Pretty simple right?

2. Alignment

---

This is pretty obvious when you know it.

You won’t be able to ignore this ever again!

You can align your text to the left, middle, right or justified as below…

This is the same with vertical alignment.

The aim here is to keep each element of your design the same.

You can have a call to action aligned to the right, whilst your heading is aligned to the left. But it looks weird if you have part of you heading aligned to the left and part of it centred (I know I’m guilty of that in the past!… Thanks Kristin!)

3. Repeat, repeat, repeat

---

If you’re like me, you love time-saving tips.

The best thing about this is it will help you look more professional… and save time!

Again, this is pretty simple.

Choose a few fonts, colours and styles that you use regularly across your pins, logos and brand.

Here’s the best tips:

• Choose 2/ 3 fonts
• Create a colour palette of about 5 colours (you can include black and white and use a free colour palette tool to choose around 3 others)
• Use similar styles i.e. arrows/ boxes

Now write them down in your notepad or somewhere you have access to regularly.

I use Evernote (it’s free).

4. Contrast

---

Possibly the most important design concept.

This is the way to make the biggest difference VERY quickly.

You can use contrast by changing:

• Colour
• Size
• Shape
• Space

This is really only skimming the surface as there are so many variations you can use. Even within one pin!

The aim is to draw your viewer’s attention to a particular element and make certain words “pop” off the page.

5. Hierarchy

---

My personal favourite new design principle!

There should always be a “hierarchy” of the order you want your viewers to see elements on your designs.

In a pin that order may be:

1. Heading
2. Subheading
3. Image
4. Call to action
5. Your URL

Check out the two pins below…

The one on the right draws your eyes to the words “harvest peas” first. The image of peas confirms your eyes read it right! Then you can see the CTA has a free checklist.

So you may want your viewers to see your CTA before your subheading.

Or maybe the image should be the first thing they see.

Your hierarchy is super important in conveying the message you want. And the majority of people do not even consider this when designing pins.

Boom!

You now know more than most blogger pin designers!

Related content:

• How to Use Pinterest for Beginners
• 5 Pinterest Hacks to Get Viral Traffic
• Who Else Wants Free Traffic? Find Easy Keywords for Your Website

Quickly create viral pins- creating pins in Canva

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This is exactly how to create a pin for Pinterest on a budget.

You have to use Canva.

It’s free, has amazingly easy to use tools and saves so much time.

With that said, here’s Kristin to walk you through how to use Canva…

But Kristin also added in an amazing value bomb in the podcast…

How to create 50 Pins in an hour

This is amazing!

Here’s what you need to do…

To be fair… Kristin did say you may need to spend a bit more time designing your 5 templates.

But this is certainly possible and a great little hack that I will personally be using… a lot!

One of the main messages throughout the chat was to…

Keep it simple stupid!

---

This is one of the most common mistakes when new bloggers are learning how to create a pin on Pinterest…

Most people try to add in fancy little design elements to make it look like they are a pro designer (I’m holding my hands up right now… typing with your nose is hard FYI!)

Just make your pins and all your designs simple.

Don’t add in crazy shadow effects or colour gradients.

Keep it simple = save more time + make your pins look more professional.

There were some other little gems thrown in by Kristin too…

Best free graphic design tools

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Here are some super helpful (free) graphic design tools you can use:

• Colorzilla (Chrome colour dropper extension to choose any colour you see on the screen… great for matching colours to an image)
• Photopea (make transparent backgrounds and more fancy things)
• Creative Market (free fancy designs and patterns etc.)
• Ivory mix (get awesome stock photos… it has paid versions too!)

All of this awesome value, but you may still be wondering…

How to create a pin for Pinterest & post it

---

Now you know how to create a pin for Pinterest, how do you actually post it to Pinterest?

There are numerous ways and even if you already know one or two ways to do it, there may be another sneaky time-saving way that you aren’t aware of…

Use the Pinterest Chrome extension

---

Simply install the Pinterest extension.

Whenever you are on any website you can click the Pin button and you get to choose any image that is on the website.

Remember to add your description for the pin using keywords.

So if you upload your pin to your blog, you can easily pin from there.

Use your social shares plugin

---

There are loads of social share plugins out there and everyone will tell you theirs is the best.

I use Social Warfare as it doesn’t affect the website speed and I love the features (even in the free version!)

Simply click the extension that looks like this and pin it. You can even try the one on this page now 😉

This method will again need you to upload your pin to your blog post.

Add from a website in Pinterest

---

This is the third way of saving a pin from a website.

Personally, I don’t know why anyone would ever choose this option as it seems silly.

But maybe you want to just stay on the Pinterest platform and you know the exact URL you are looking for?

Anyway here’s what to do…

Upload a photo in Pinterest

---

You can do this without needing to upload your pin onto your blog.

This is great for designing multiple pins for one blog post. It means you don’t need to add a load of pins to one post, which does 2 things:

1. Slows the page speed down
2. Adds loads of unnecessary pins to your page

Simply:

• Click the + on Pinterest
• Create Pin
• Drag your image into the correct slot (see screenshot above)
• Add your title and description (make sure keywords are in there. Check out this post for more about Pinterest SEO)

Directly on Tailwind

---

This is another way you can add additional pins that are not on your blog post.

Note it’s a good idea to make more than one pin per blog post. Read more about why in 5 Pinterest hacks for more blog traffic.

Then you simply:

• Click publisher & drafts
• Upload your pin
• Add title, description and URL & schedule to appropriate boards

Using the Tailwind Chrome extension

---

This is very similar to the Pinterest extension.

The two big differences are:

1. You can upload multiple pins in one go
2. You can schedule the pins to multiple boards

Here’s a great little hack to help you pin 100+ pins in a couple of minutes…

If you don’t have Tailwind you can see how much of time-saver it is! (that’s an affiliate link that will give you 100 pins for free to try it out and 1 month free if you upgrade!)

Related content:

• 25 Proven Ways to Make $1,000+ a Month Online
• Blog Income Reports Study- How the 7 Best Niches Make Money
• How does Blogging Make Money?

Full Podcast Transcript

---

What can you do now?

---

Check out Kristin’s website Applecart Lane.

She has a 30-minute free course that walks you through these design steps in much more detail.

I’ve genuinely paid over $40 for similar “courses” before (I won’t name & shame them!) and learnt a fraction of the actionable tips that Kristin provides here.

The training is complete with over the shoulder videos and it includes:

• More detail about the 5 design principles above
• How to plan your graphics
• 10 common design mistakes people make
• Branding basics
• Graphic design checklist
• Graphic planning worksheet

It’s epic and I doubt it will stay free for long.

Go to her website now to find out how to get it, before it’s taken down!

Kristin Rappaport podcast summary

---

So there you go… exactly how to create a pin for Pinterest and make it look amazing!

These “show notes” have ended up becoming a full-on blog post in itself because there really was so much to take away from this chat.

Graphic design isn’t just for people with an “eye for it”.

Anyone can learn these simple design techniques and use them to get way more traffic from Pinterest.

What are you going to do differently in your pin design from now on? Have you got any questions about graphic design?

How to Use Pinterest SEO to Get 150k Pageviews a Month in Your First Year- Anastasia Blogger Podcast

You probably know that some bloggers drive some crazy traffic to their website every month.

However, many people suspect this traffic is not sustainable. Pinterest can be fickle and viral spikes make consistent traffic hard to find. But this isn’t the case for everyone!

In this Anastasia Blogger podcast, you will find out that by using Pinterest marketing SEO techniques it is, in fact, possible to generate this traffic every month.

We chat about:

• Why Anastasia’s career set her up perfectly for Pinterest SEO
• How Anastasia made more than her day job within one year of using Pinterest marketing.
• The way that you can monetise traffic from Pinterest (every month)
• The changes in Pinterest for 2020 and beyond

Listen on Apple Podcasts/ Google Podcasts

Anastasia Blogger Background

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Anastasia’s first job, in 2007, was as an editor working for an online magazine.

Her role included studying SEO (Search engine optimisation) for Google and social media platforms i.e. Facebook.

Therefore, she learnt a lot about the theory of online marketing, without even knowing it.

She worked for some different:

• Digital agencies
• In house marketer for companies

But it wasn’t until she moved to Portugal in 2017 that she ever considered moving from an…

Employee to Entrepreneur

---

She saw that her clients were making money as they were willing to invest a lot in SEO and social media marketing.

This led her to have the feeling…

“If a business can make money online, why can’t a blogger?”

Portugal is quite a poor country (but stunning!) and the job opportunities were terrible for her.

So in 2017, Anastasia started her blog as a side hustle.

After a year of slow growth, she found that her payment from one advertising network was about the same amount as she was getting from the day job!

Crazy huh?!

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying… so how does she make money?

Ad Networks

---

Ad networks are vital for Pinterest because they help to monetise traffic.

You literally don’t need to sell anything or do anything else other than get people to look at your website and put ads on there.

There are really 2 main ad networks that bloggers need to try and get on to receive decent money:

• Mediavine
• or AdThrive

Mediavine requires 25,000 sessions per month

It pays around $20 per thousand visitors.

170,000 monthly pageviews made around $1,500 in one month.

RPM can be the highest during the last quarter of the year because many ad networks have an annual budget.

So, they need to spend it all to get the same budget or more the following year.

AdThrive has a higher minimum requirement than MediaVine at 100,000 page views per month.

Both companies are great as they have excellent customer & publisher support. If you’d like to learn more then check out The 5 Best Ad Networks for Bloggers.

Anastasia tried both and found that Mediavine paid her slightly more each month compared to AdThrive.

I can almost hear your mind saying…

How did Anastasia achieve so many pageviews each month as a new blogger?

That’s a great question and the main focus of this podcast.

There is one answer to this…

Pinterest Marketing!

---

So Anastasia only started using Pinterest after a few months of blogging.

She noticed some bigger bloggers income reports showed they received 80%+ from Pinterest marketing alone.

She already knew it takes some time (1 year+) for Google to recognise your site.

However, Pinterest doesn’t care about the sites domain authority.

She didn’t see traffic immediately, but once she worked out the platform, her traffic started snowballing.

So will Pinterest still be able to bring you traffic in 2020 and beyond?

Related content:

• How to Use Pinterest for Beginners
• How does Blogging Make Money?
• 5 Pinterest Hacks to Skyrocket Your Traffic

Pinterest Marketing Changes in 2020

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Pinterest is still improving its algorithm to fight spam.

There have been some recent major cleanups that ended up blocking lots of accounts including some legit accounts.

Anastasia explains how to avoid this in the video below. As someone who got caught up in the blocked accounts, take it from me that it can be VERY annoying if it happens!

Pinterest became a public company in mid-2018.

This means they are pushing harder for advertising on the platform.

Therefore, people are worried about the reach of organic pins.

Anastasia agrees it may be a transitional time that takes a couple of years to settle down, but it’s unlikely there will be drastic changes overnight.

Pinterest still needs to earn the trust of advertisers.

Hence, it will certainly take some time before organic traffic will take a hit.

Pinterest won’t reduce organic traffic completely because:

• It is still a search engine (search features like Google)
• It cannot only show sponsored pins as regular users won’t like it

Google went into the direction of monopolising search results with ads, maps, snippets from the website in the search results so people won’t have to click on the website to find the information.

So what does this mean for you as a blogger?

Avoid Outdated Techniques

(37 mins)

There are 2 techniques, which have changed.

They still help to expand your reach (particularly for new accounts).

Group Boards

Mid-2018 Pinterest announced that group boards were not created for the way that “content creators” were using them.

Boards were not for the promotion of pins but for collaborations of smaller groups of bloggers.

Therefore they drastically reduced the distribution of spammy group boards.

These boards were hurting the accounts of those who were creating them and also the accounts that were saving pins to them.

Be very selective and only spend 10% of your time applying to them.

Manual repinning

Pinterest didn’t like it when people manually repined their own pins to other boards.

The most important thing to be aware of is this:

Pinterest doesn’t want duplicate pins on the same board more than once every 3 months.

Fact.

If you use the mobile app you get the warning saying you have already saved the pin to a certain board. If you get this message…

DO NOT REPIN IT TO THIS BOARD!

If you don’t get the warning sign then it should be OK.

Understanding Pinterest Marketing

---

If you’re like me, you know it’s important to understand how something works before diving in.

Well here are some little gems from the Anastasia Blogger podcast…

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is really two things:

1. A social media platform
2. A search engine

Because of the two functions of Pinterest, it’s possible to get traffic spikes from viral traffic as well as getting traffic from SEO.

However, after 6 months or so there is a certain level of Pinterest traffic you will receive without viral spikes in traffic.

Psychology of Pinners

It’s important to understand the psychology of people using Pinterest too to get the most out of it…

People use Pinterest for inspiration, not always the exact answer.

That is slightly different from Google.

Therefore, Pinterest has much shorter keywords (75% are only 1-3 words)

Google tends to have longer keywords as people look for a specific answer to a question.

Pinterest Facts & Stats

Here are some important facts to be aware of too:

• Users on Pinterest scroll down about 60 pins on average, so you don’t have to be in the top few to receive traffic.
• The majority of Pinterest users are on mobile devices (which again means they will likely search for fewer words)
• There is also a “search suggestions” tab based on the interests of the users due to their past history and activity.

The Two Pinterest User “Modes”

It’s also important to realise that people typically have 2 modes when using Pinterest:

1. Active (type in a query)
2. Passive (browsing on the feed)

Therefore, if a user searched for something a day ago and you create a pin the day after, they may find your pin in their activity feed when browsing.

Handy eh?

So how can you make the most from using Pinterest?

How to Use Pinterest SEO to Get Sustainable Traffic

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There are some things you can do to massively help get more traffic from SEO on Pinterest.

Always optimise relevant keywords in the following places:

• Words on your Pin images
• Pin title
• Pin descriptions (enabling “rich pins”)
• Pinterest board (most relevant board first!)
• URL of your post
• Words on the website itself

Check out Anastasia’s video to see more detail about how to use SEO on Pinterest…

As you can see there is so much you can learn from Anastasia on Pinterest SEO.

How Long Does it Take to See Results From Pinterest SEO?

---

The short answer is 3 months.

But that will only work if you are consistent.

Pinterest needs at least 10 pins every day minimum for your account to be seen as active.

Plus, when you start you will need to save popular pins from other people.

Does Pinterest Work for ANY Niche?

No!

Of course, you can get some traffic in any niche.

But they are not all equal.

Here are some niches that you will get more traffic on Pinterest:

• Recipes
• Home decor
• Fashion
• DIY

80% of users are women looking for inspiration for everyday life.

Here are some niches that don’t do as well (but do get some traffic):

• Business
• Blogging
• Personal development

It’s also pointless for a local restaurant or car repairing company to get traffic from Pinterest!

People will always use Google for that.

Top 3 Tips if Anastasia Could go Back in Time

---

If Anastasia could go back to the day that she moved to Portugal, here is what she would tell herself:

1. Write more content that works on Pinterest straight away (food, DIY etc.)
2. Stop underestimating yourself (you can learn it!)
3. Start a YouTube channel sooner

Full Podcast Transcript

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Links

---

Here are the best ways to get in contact with Anastasia or to check out more of her work…

YouTube (leave a comment on any video to get a response)

Website

Contact page

Anastasia Blogger Podcast Summary

---

Anastasia clearly has so much knowledge about SEO.

When you combine that with what she has since learnt about Pinterest you have someone that is ahead of many people in generating traffic from Pinterest.

Yes, there are changes to Pinterest.

But it’s certainly still possible to get organic (free) traffic from Pinterest in 2020 and beyond.

Keep changing for the better

Mike

P.S. What was your favourite takeaway from this podcast? Are there any questions you have about Pinterest SEO?

Drop a comment below!

25 Proven Ways To Make $1,000+ A Month Online You Can Start Today

What would being able to make $1,000 a month online mean to you?

Maybe it would help you:

• Cover the rent
• Leave your job and spend more time with your family
• Pay off your debt quicker
• Save more and invest for the future
• Be able to travel more

Being able to make $1,000+ a month online can have a huge impact on your life. But most people believe it’s just a pipe dream that only people with “special skills” can achieve.

In fact, it’s much more achievable than you may think.

This article will show you 25 proven ways that real people use to make $1,000+ a month online.

They are just normal people like you and me, and they have all been on the Make Time Online podcast at some stage to share how they do it.

Feel free to play the podcast below to hear more about their stories and then skim your way through the article or read every word to see if you get any inspiration!

Just so you know, most of them had no idea how to do this about 5 years ago (some even much more recent!)

Can I Make $1,000 A Month Online From Home?

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You probably saw the title to this article and immediately imagined…

via GIPHY

In reality, this simply won’t happen any time soon. All of these methods of making money online took these people time and effort to learn.

However, none of these people are born geniuses or lucky because they were “rich and famous”.

As it turns out, almost anyone can make money online.

We’re just not taught about this in school.

If you can read and write it’s actually possible to make any amount of money online if you learn from the right source and put enough time into it. As you continue to read this article on ways to make $1,000 a month online, you will see exactly how.

Make Money Online Benefits

---

You probably know there are loads of benefits to making money online.

Here are some of them:

• Your earnings are unlimited (you can scale your earnings online much easier than in a physical business)
• It gives you the potential to quit your job (and make time form working online!)
• Provides flexibility (work any time you like)
• Allows you to work anywhere in the world
• Reduces expenses (it can become a hobby to replace other expensive hobbies such as shopping)
• You can start earning money online part-time (no need to quit the day job to start)

The benefits are endless especially if you make money online in a way that can scale and is passive income.

Now, I can almost hear your mind asking…

Is Making Money Online Easy?

---

Yes and no.

Yes in the sense that you can literally sign up to online paid survey sites right now. By clicking that link you can get paid bonuses just for signing up and then earn more money by filling out some surveys.

They are all completely free to join too (if a survey site is not free to join it’s likely a scam!)

However, if you are looking to make passive income online it will take longer than some people will tell you.

Are the skills hard or difficult to do?

No.

Does it take time to learn the skills you need and set things up to make it passive income?

Yes.

What Is Passive Income Online?

---

The definition of passive income can change depending on who you ask.

The definition of passive income online here is:

Put the work in once and get paid over and over again for it. It also requires a little effort to maintain it.

The best example I can give for it is…

If someone tells you it’s possible to make passive income by clicking a button and watching the money roll in… it’s a scam.

If they say you can just do the work once and you’ll make money from it forever… they are lying.

It is possible to make passive income online, but it’s important to be aware of what this means in reality.

Therefore, this post explaining ways to make $1,000+ a month online is different to many others that you will find…

Make $1,000 A Month Online Ratings

---

There are so many ways to make money online but they are not all equal.

The rest of this article will show you numerous ways that everyday people are making $1,000+ month.

But it will also provide a ranking for 5 different areas so that you can quickly see what approach suits you.

Each rating is a score of 1-5 with 1 being the lowest or easiest and 5 being the hardest or highest.

Difficulty

The difficulty rating just means how difficult it would be for you to start making some good money from the make money idea.

It takes into account the time you would need to put in and the skill level required.

A score of 1 means you could start making money very quickly and easily.

A score of 5 means it would likely take you some time to make money from the idea as you would need to learn some more skills on the way.

Skill Level Required

This is the rating that may put you off.

However, none of the skills needed in this article is rocket science.

Every real example you will see from someone making money in that way has learnt the skill either by themself (aka Google or YouTube) or finding a mentor or low-cost course.

They have simply invested in themselves.

A score of 5 means you need to have some very specific skills to make money from the idea. But often this means there is more opportunity as fewer people will attempt this.

Initial Investment

This is pretty obvious.

A score of 1 means you need no money to start. A score of 5 means you will definitely need money to try this idea.

*A score of 2 means you need very little money but some people may argue you don’t need any money to start!

Income Potential

Again another straight forward one.

A score of 1 means you are unlikely to make much money from this. A score of 5 means the income potential is unlimited (seriously… I mean unlimited).

Passive Income

We’ve already discussed the definition of passive income.

So if the score is 1 it means you will have to continue to trade your time for money to make money from the opportunity.

A score of 5 means it’s possible for you to put in very minimal effort and time to keep making money.

*Some ideas are possible to “systemise” or hire other people (aka freelancers) to make it more hands-off.

How Make Time Online Podcast Guests Make Money Online

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As stated earlier in this article, every single one of these ideas has been implemented and spoken about on the Make Time Online podcast.

No one is an astronaut or super genius.

They are all completely normal people who have figured out to do this by themselves.

The make $1,000+ a month online opportunities are split into different sections to allow you to check out the ones you are interested in.

Enjoy!

Online Business Ideas

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These are online business ideas that you can start from home.

Some of them may seem similar but there is actually quite a big difference between some of these ideas.

Just knowing what business you are actually trying to build can be the difference between success and failure.

1. Start a Blog

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Yes, a money-making blog is a business!

The term “blog” still seems to have this negative connotation to it (like the word “vegan”!)

People typically imagine some young lady who writes about what she had for dinner yesterday and how she’s feeling.

via GIPHY

Whereas, in fact, a blog is basically any website that you have ever looked at.

A blog is simply a website that someone (or some people) writes articles (or posts) on.

It’s become one of the most common ways for people to make money online as there is no real limit to what you can earn from a blog…

And anyone can start one!

Hearing about these blogs was what opened my eyes to money-making opportunities online.

Positives:

• You can start a topic on something that interests you aka passion project i.e. write about being a Mom or a yogi or travel etc.
• Very little technical skills or investment required to get started
• Monetise the blog in numerous ways to create multiple streams of income i.e. affiliate marketing, display ads, selling products

Negatives:

• Takes several months (at least) before you make any significant money
• Easy to get distracted or not have a focus (shiny objects)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 4 out of 5

2. Affiliate Marketing

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This is actually how I started making money online.

The concept is pretty simple.

You connect people to a product that they are already looking for.

If someone clicks your link and buys the product, you will get paid a commission.

And commissions range from anything between 4%-90% (I actually promote a course that is super cheap & great and it pays me 80% commission!)

There are heaps of ways to use affiliate marketing, but the best way to scale a passive income is also by using a website (aka blog).

Positives:

• No need to spend time creating your own products.
• Possible to make money from affiliate links quickly using social media platforms (i.e. you could join Amazon Associates right now and recommend your favourite book on Facebook… if someone buys through your link, you’ve just made money online!)
• Possible to scale the business for unlimited income (we’re getting to this…)

Negatives:

• There are certain skills you will need to learn to make a good income from it (i.e. SEO, copywriting etc.)
• It will take time to build passive income

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 3 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

3. Niche Blogging- SEO Focus

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This is a very interesting make money online idea and one that you are taught about in my #1 recommendation.

SEO stands for search engine optimisation.

It basically means trying to get your website ranked on Google’s first page for certain keywords.

A keyword is a word or phrase that someone types into Google.

And some keywords get searched for a lot more than others, for example:

“Gardening tools” gets more searches than “gardening in winter”.

The idea behind it is to choose a very specific niche to write about i.e. gardening tools.

You then would write specific articles (like this one you’re reading about how to make $1,000 a month online).

For example, you may use a keyword such as:

“Best Gardening Tools For Weeding”

or

“How to Use a Garden Hoe”

By ranking on the first page of Google you will consistently get “traffic” to your website every month. You do not need to pay any money or advertise your website to get this traffic… people visit your website every month… for free!

You can monetise this site with affiliate links or by placing display ads on the website.

Positives:

• Once you rank for keywords on Google it can become very passive
• It can be very low cost to get started (around $85/ year for website hosting & a domain name is all you really need)

Negatives:

• It takes quite a few months for a new website to start to be recognised by Google
• It can feel like you’re not getting anywhere and many people give up before they see success

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 3 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

4. Viral Blogging- Using Pinterest & Ads

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Many people will use Pinterest as a way to promote (aka market) their blog.

However, there are actually some people that set up their blog specifically for Pinterest.

Are you wondering what the hecky mo I mean?

via GIPHY

Well, Pinterest is still mainly used by women with a median age of 40.

So if you are pinning about quad bikes do you think you’ll get heaps of traffic from there? Of course not! You may be able to get some traffic, but nowhere near as much as other niches.

The niches that typically do VERY well on Pinterest:

• Home decor
• Recipes
• DIY crafts
• Women’s fashion

So if you create a blog focussing on any or all of these topics, you are going to be reaching a much larger audience.

It doesn’t end there either.

There are 2 types of articles that people LOVE to read and save on Pinterest:

• How to (or ultimate guides)
• List posts (this is a list post… 25 ways to make $1,000+ a month online)

So some people deliberately set up their blog to focus on creating articles on one of the 4 big topics above and only write “how-to” or list post articles.

This means they end up getting a lot of traffic… quickly!

Once this happens…

All the blogs need to do is place some high-quality ads on there and wallah… they make $1,000+ a month online very quickly (a few months).

Here’s the kicker about Pinterest compared to Google (or SEO)…

Pinterest doesn’t care how old your website is or how many people link to it. All they care about is if people save and click on your pins.

The other great thing is that Pinterest has its own “SEO traffic” too because…

Pinterest is technically two types of platforms:

1. A social media platform
2. A search engine

At the top of Pinterest, there is a search bar that people type “keywords” to find something they are looking for.

Note that pins that rank in the top 60 get eyes on them every single month! Google is really only the top 10 or so.

Positives:

• Can be very quick to get traffic to your website
• Once you get over 25,000 monthly sessions to your website you can use Mediavine ad network, which pays much better than other display ads such as Google Adsense.
• You can also hire writers to continue writing under your name (ghostwriter) to make this method more passive

Negatives:

• Writing long “list posts” can be time-consuming
• Pinterest can be fickle and your traffic can come and go for no apparent reason
• There is a learning curve to using Pinterest (creating “pins” to boards & scheduling them)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 4 out of 5

5. Contributor Blogs

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I’d actually never heard of this one before I spoke to this guest on the podcast.

The idea behind this one is that you use a website that already gets some traffic each month. It could from Google or other social media channels, that doesn’t matter too much.

You can start this in a couple of ways:

1. Buy an existing domain with traffic
2. Start a new blog yourself and build the traffic up

Once you have a website generating 10,000+ page-views a month other people are more willing to “guest post” or “contribute” on your website as it helps them gain exposure.

This way you can keep producing content and generating traffic to your website without writing anything yourself.

The issue here is that you will need a network of “bloggers” looking to get exposure to their own blogs willing to write for you. If you are brand new to blogging this may not be the best idea.

But then again you can network with other bloggers quickly in Facebook groups and slowly add the contributors over time.

Positives:

• Very little work to maintain once you have contributors for your blog
• There’s no limit to how much you can scale this

Negatives:

• It will require networking and connecting with appropriate bloggers
• The bloggers are likely to be quite new so the content may not be the best. You will need to sort the wheat from the chaff!

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 3 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

6. Creating and Selling Courses

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This is the way that bloggers tend to go from making a few thousand dollars a month to making 5 or even 6 figures a month.

Yeah seriously, there are plenty of “normal people” making 6 figures a month from their online business.

Just think about this…

Imagine you make 50% affiliate commission from a $25 e-book about how to use Pinterest. So you make $12.50 each time someone buys the course through your affiliate link.

Let’s say you were making a consistent 100 sales a month due to getting traffic to a certain article about how to use Pinterest for bloggers.

Now, if you create your own (better) online Pinterest course, you could charge $65 and keep all the profits.

Your income jumps to $6,500 a month instead of $1,250!

Now imagine that you create a course or product that you can sell for $500+… or create multiple courses…

However, it doesn’t mean you have to create a huge or really expensive course to start making money in this way.

Example of smaller courses

You may know how to knit a jumper and there may be other people who would love to learn that.

If you could create a short e-book or an online course on a platform like teachable then you could make money from selling that course.

It certainly helps if you have a blog (aka website) to help promote the course but some people use social media platforms to promote it for free.

A great tip is to build an audience either with an email list, on social media or on your blog. Once you have an audience you can ask them what their struggles are and create a course that suits them. This way you won’t spend ages creating a course that nobody wants!

Positives:

• You are more in control of how much money you make
• It’s possible to create multiple courses or improve your course as you go
• You can automate the sales by offering other people a chance to become an affiliate and using sales/ email funnels

Negatives:

• You have to do the work to make sure people buy it
• It takes time to create the courses

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 5 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

7. Affiliate Marketing Business Using Paid Ads

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Some people are really just not interested in writing or creating a blog.

I get it!

I used to be one of them.

It seemed like too much effort for too little reward…

That was until I truly understood the value of a blog to help get free traffic from Google or social media channels.

However, the good news is that it’s possible to create income from affiliate marketing without owning a blog.

There are free methods that you can do this using social media channels. But that requires a lot of elbow grease from you. You will typically need to manually message people and the conversion rates are pretty poor with this method because of the lack of trust!

So this leads onto the paid ads method.

You can pay for ads on Google, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram and almost any platform that exists now.

How paid ads work:

1. The platform loves it because you pay them money
2. You love it because you get targetted traffic
3. The audience loves it because they find products that they are looking for.

If you can make more money from affiliate commissions than it costs you to place an advert on one of these platforms, then you can imagine how quickly you can grow this!

There are real people out there who use this method to generate an insane amount of money online every month like clockwork.

But it is easier said than done.

These ads are becoming super competitive and if your ad doesn’t grab attention and make people want to find out more, then you can burn through money like there’s no tomorrow!

Positives:

• You can make money very quickly
• It’s possible to scale your income to frightening levels if you can find affiliate programs with good conversion rates & write great ad copy

Negatives:

• It’s possible to lose a lot of money very quickly if you don’t figure out how to get people to click on your ads (many people chase lost money here)
• When you stop buying ads your income stops (it is possible to set up a long-standing advert or hire someone else to do it for you though)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 4 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 3 out of 5

8. Podcasting

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So as you can tell I also have a podcast (there is a podcast at the top of the page for this article in case you missed it).

However, my podcast was never designed to make money. I, personally, just wanted to share what I was learning about making money online and have some really cool chats with people that are living life on their own terms.

Benefits of having a podcast:

• Learning from experts in your industry
• Creating a personal brand or branding your business
• Getting some cool freebies from guests or sponsors (I’ve had some amazing courses from mine)
• Save time- send people to a podcast episode rather than constantly repeating yourself if someone asks you a question (you still help them get the answer and you don’t need to spend ages writing a long message back!)

But it’s also possible to make money from a podcast. Even if you think you’re a nobody!

Podcasts can have paid sponsors in exchange for you mentioning them during your podcast.

It’s possible to find a small business or a “solopreneur” (possibly a blog owner) who wants to get their brand out there. People are willing to pay $100+ per episode, so if you make 2 episodes a week it’s easily possible to make $1,000 a month online.

People like John Lee Dumas get paid tens of thousands of dollars a month from his podcast.

However, when you are just starting you can offer small businesses something like:

• I’ll mention your company 2 times per episode
• I will promote your company on my Twitter account with X followers, my Facebook group with X followers etc.
• I will send weekly emails to my highly engaged list of X number with promoting your company

This is amazing exposure for small businesses and many are willing to pay you good money for it!

Positives:

• Podcasts can be really fun… you get to talk about a topic that you are passionate about
• You can network with some amazing people who you normally wouldn’t be able to speak to
• You can start right now, it takes hardly any special equipment or software to start one (see below)

Negatives:

• It’s not really passive income as you have to keep creating podcasts to keep the money coming in (although you can outsource it to someone else eventually… but that kind of defeats the point!)
• Connecting with people on the other side of the world in different time zones can be challenging sometimes (but I manage it on a weekly basis!)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 3 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 2 out of 5

9. MLM/ Network Marketing

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Multi-Level-Marketing or Network Marketing is a type of business where “consultants” (also known as influencers/ recruiters etc.) get paid commission for selling a companies products.

This is a similar way as affiliate marketing but there is one difference…

They also get paid for recruiting more members to the program.

Sometimes this will be a direct commission for recruiting members, and usually, they will get commissions from sales their “downline” make.

This means they could be doing anything they want and their team could be making all the sales.

In reality, it doesn’t always work like that.

There are many stats that show the vast majority of people don’t make good money from MLM programs i.e. 99% of MLM recruits lose money.

But equally, there are people who take it very seriously and live an amazing lifestyle and enjoy the perks of the business.

MLM Benefits:

• Free travel
• Fancy cars
• Personal development training

Some MLM companies still focus on outdated and poorly scaled techniques such as “home parties” where a recruit may invite people over to show off the products and explain the business opportunity.

But the most successful consultants will always leverage the power of the internet to work 24/7/365. It may be on social media or building their own website.

If you are considering starting an MLM company see if you can find one which ticks these boxes:

• Low start-up fee – ✅
• High-quality products – ✅
• You don’t have to carry inventory – ✅
• Generous compensation plan – ✅
• An affiliate-like system (so you can sell online) – ✅
• Company is in the early momentum phase – ✅

Also, be aware that some MLM companies are just pyramid schemes in disguise. They may offer a “product or service” but really the ONLY way you will get paid decent money is by recruiting more members into the MLM program.

Check out this 5-minute video to see how to avoid a pyramid scheme…

Positives:

• Often includes excellent benefits and bonuses i.e. fancy cars, luxury travel and lucrative bonuses
• If you build a good “downline” you can make passive income

Negatives:

• In reality, when you stop working on the business it will stop making you money unless you get to a very high level
• It is very competitive and often involves “selling” the company to your friends and family to try and get some more recruits
• You need to have excellent people skills and be able to sell the products and vision to others

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 5 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 3 out of 5

Sell Things Online

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Nearly all of the business opportunities above also include selling things online.

The majority of them are digital products that could be their own product or someone else’s, but every make-money opportunity involves selling something.

This section covers the opportunities for selling physical products online.

10. Dropshipping

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This has become a super popular way to make money online in recent years.

First of all, let’s define a common misunderstanding of the difference between dropshipping and Amazon FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon):

• Dropshipping is when you act as the middle man between suppliers and customers. Therefore you don’t have to own or store any stock.
• Amazon FBA is when you invest and store merchandise in an Amazon warehouse before being sold.

Here are the basic steps to getting a dropshipping business up and running:

1. Select a niche
2. Perform competition research
3. Find a supplier
4. Build an eCommerce website (Shopify is the most popular one, it costs from $29-$299 a month)
5. Acquire customers (i.e. using Facebook ads or other social media)
6. Analyse and optimise it

Whilst it is actually possible to start dropshipping without any monetary investment (you can use sites like eBay for your supplier’s products), the most success happens when you own your own store and send customers to it.

Ways To Get Free Traffic:

• Using social media/ connect with influencers
• Guest posting on relevant blogs
• Focusing on building an email list (MailChimp and MailerLite are free)

However, dropshipping can’t rely on SEO or long term free traffic methods because you won’t be writing articles using keywords like you will on a blog (aka website).

Therefore, you will also need a budget to invest in Facebook or Google ads to send potential customers to your store.

Similarly to the Affiliate Marketing with ads business model, the potential is unlimited and you can make a lot of money very quickly.

If you can create an ad that generates more profit compared to how much the ad costs then your income is unlimited.

However, that is easier said than done and you are likely to lose a fair bit of money early on if you’re brand new to creating ads. Some people give up before they find a successful campaign whilst others are aware of the risk and manage to break through to become profitable.

Positives:

• No need to store inventory and you don’t need to write long articles or create products
• Possible to make a lot of money very quickly if you can create a profitable ad campaign

Negatives:

• If you stop working and creating ads then you will stop making money
• It’s possible to lose a lot of money by chasing lost money on ads
• You will likely need to invest in some training as creating ads and dropshipping requires specific skills (i.e. copywriting and marketing)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 3 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 2 out of 5

11. Sell Things on eBay

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This one’s a great one!

Something that I have again personally done in the past and it’s great to make a bit of pocket money from some random junk you have in the house.

However, there are actually more business savvy methods you can take with this one:

• Dropshipping (as just explained in #10)
• “Flea Market Flipping” (buying things for cheap and selling them on)

I won’t go into dropshipping model again but it’s possible to buy things from suppliers for wholesale value and sell them at retail value with this method.

The same principle applies for “flea market flipping”.

The idea is that you buy things (or find things) for cheap or even free.

Then you can put them on eBay and make a healthy profit.

Here’s the eBay secret sauce:

1. Buy things locally
2. Sell them worldwide

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying…

One man’s junk is another mans treasure

It’s possible to find amazing deals all over the place if you train your mind to find them. Here are some ideas:

• Flea market sales
• The dump/ tip
• Big dumpsters in retail areas
• The side of the road (no kidding!)
• Lettings/ real estate agents (who deal with tenants moving out and leaving stuff behind)
• Moving companies

It’s possible to get a great contact who comes across stuff left behind all over the place. It’s often a huge problem for them to dispose of it, so that leaves you with an opportunity to pick up things for free or dirt cheap and sell them on.

You may think it’s hard to sell certain items but when you put it on a worldwide stage such as eBay, you will be surprised.

Positives:

• No money is required to start (you likely have hundreds of dollars worth of items in your house that you don’t use and you can find things at the dump for free!)
• Once you make a profit you can reinvest that and buy better items that can sell for more (it’s possible to make a lot more than you think as you’re about to find out…)

Negatives:

• It takes some hard work and hustle to find these opportunities
• It’s not the most passive income (although you can outsource tasks, such as finding the items at flea markets or uploading them to eBay etc.)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 2 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 4 out of 5
• Passive Income: 2 out of 5

12. Buy & Sell Cars (Or Other Vehicles)

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No matter where you live in the world, chances are… people buy and sell cars there all the time!

Just Google “buy a car” and you will find numerous websites that you can buy and sell cars where you live.

The idea is again pretty simple:

• Buy cars at a discount
• Sell them for more

You can even add a step in the middle if you know a thing or two about cars i.e. fix the car up or make it better.

It doesn’t have to be cars though!

Other types of vehicles to “flip”

“Van Life” has become all the rage!

People are realising they can live for a fraction of the price in a van and have the freedom and time to travel wherever they like. This isn’t even grown-up students just out of college. It includes “mid-life crisis’s” and newly pensioners!

If you can learn how to convert vans into a campervan, you can earn some serious money from this.

You can even target specialised vehicles such as VW campervans, which hold their value really well.

Certain cars do hold their value well so it’s even possible to buy a car for yourself and sell it a couple of years later to make a profit (effectively giving you a free car!) Typically, Japanese models that are about 3-5 years old tend to do well for this.

By using these tips it’s possible to make $1,000+ a month online by selling a couple of used cars per month… or fixing up one van every 3 months or so!

Positives:

• You can make a quick profit if you can find a good deal on a car.
• It can be a fun hobby to do during your spare time (i.e. converting vans into campervans is some people’s idea of fun… I’m one of them!)

Negatives:

• It’s never really passive income unless you turn this into a business and employ other people
• You can only make as much money as you can physically buy and sell… so it’s hard to scale the profits

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 2 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 4 out of 5
• Income Potential: 3 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

Online Jobs From Home

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Some people just don’t want to create an “online business”.

Maybe you just want to make an extra $1,000 a month online by working for someone else. It may be that you don’t want the stress of having to build something yourself or continue to grow it (aka water the plant) over time.

If that is you, then chances are one of these online jobs from home may be perfect for you.

There are normal people all around the world that generate an income every month with one of these jobs.

13. Virtual Assistant

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This is possibly the easiest and quickest way for anyone to start to make $1,000 a month online.

Did you know there are tens of thousands of people who are looking for someone to help manage some smaller tasks for them every day?

These tasks may include (but are not limited to):

• Email management
• Book appointments with clients
• Following up with customers or clients
• Answering calls
• Calander management
• Managing social media accounts
• Organising files or documents
• Research
• Personal errands (booking holidays/ flights)
• Transcribing
• Networking

It is becoming increasingly popular for “solopreneurs” to build a business (an entrepreneur who builds a business by themself… often online) online these days.

And oftentimes eventually they need help!

If this sounds like something you’re interested in doing then here are a few…

Ways to find a Virtual Assitant job:

• Fiverr (or other sites like Upwork, Freelancer etc.) – not the best
• Job boards such as ProBlogger – better
• Network on social media (active Facebook groups are great for this) – recommended

Without a doubt, the best way to land one of these gigs is to get to know the person first.

STOP.

Re-read that last sentence.

You can do that by following these steps:

1. Find out where they hang out (is it Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, a forum or somewhere else)
2. Interact with what they do (comment and share a blog post or social media post and join their email list and REPLY!)
3. Join communities that they are in and be helpful to people (share your knowledge, opinions and be honest)
4. Find an area you can see they need help in (i.e. if they have a growing Facebook group, can you help to manage that? Do they take a few days to reply to emails or even fail to do so?… you could help here! Do their blog posts need a spell check? Does their Instagram account suck?)

But whatever you do don’t become a stalker, like…

via GIPHY

When you use those 4 steps you are much more likely to work with clients that you want to… and you’re much more likely to get paid the amount you deserve!

Here are a few great tips from Drew DuBoff to get the best package:

• Work out how long you think you will need to spend on the tasks at hand
• If it’s your first one work on a $25 an hour basis
• Work out how much that costs per month and aim to get that rate i.e. 40 hours a month (aka 10 hours a week) = $1,000 a month
• Always aim for a “retainer package”… aka $1,000 per month to do X, Y and Z (not $13.49 an hour to check some emails)

You may need to try it out with your first gig and be a bit more flexible but it’s a great way to start making money online.

Positives:

• You can make $1,000+ a month online quickly
• You can use skills that you already have i.e. email management, Facebook group management, Instagram posting, Organising a calendar, research skills etc.

Negatives:

• It is not passive income (although it is possible to turn it into a business and employ others to smaller jobs for you!)
• Like a traditional job, there’s a limit to how much time you can give to other people aka a limit to how much you can earn

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 1 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 3 out of 5
• Passive Income: 2 out of 5

14. Freelancing

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This is similar to Virtual Assitant work.

But it typically involves providing some sort of specific work for your client i.e. Pinterest account management, writing blog posts, proofreading blog posts, researching blog posts, editing podcasts etc.

The 4 steps in the VA section apply again here.

The thing you likely have to offer compared to cheaper VA’s or freelancers from sites such as onlinejobs.ph is your English skills and your ability to connect with the clients.

Just speaking from personal experience, I am much more likely to hire someone who I already know.

If it’s a toss-up between a random profile on the internet or a real person I’ve messaged before I know who I will choose.

Here are some more tips to help you land some freelance work:

• Use your own website to showcase your skills (have a “hire me” page on the menu bar, add any previous examples to prove authority)
• Guest post for free if you are trying to get a writing Freelance gig (simply write “your niche + guest post” into Google to find opportunities… simple eh?)
• Connect with other Freelancers (use Facebook groups and ask on social media if anyone is a freelancer)
• Ask existing contacts if they know anyone that could use your services… and explain what your services include (sometimes they may even need them!)

There are 5 different ways you can get paid as a freelancer:

• By the project, or flat rate
• By the hour
• How many words you write
• By the page
• Retainer fee, for ongoing work (the golden ticket!)

They all work for different people but the ideal one is if you can land a retainer fee for ongoing work.

Whichever rate you (or your client) choose, try to make sure you are aiming for around $25+ an hour still.

For example, if it takes you 3 hours to write a 1,000-word article and the client wants to pay you by the amount of word you write. You know you can accept that project if they pay:

$75 divided by 1,000 = $0.08 per word (that would be $80 for 3 hours work!)

The more skilled you get the more money you can demand (once you gain the confidence, you will no longer ask!)

Positives:

• Can be a consistent income stream & you can start earning quickly
• Possible to charge higher rates over time & no investment is needed

Negatives:

• You still trade your time for money
• Can be hard to find good opportunities

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 2 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 3 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 4 out of 5
• Passive Income: 2 out of 5

Work Online For Money

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15. Running Ad Campaigns

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Put your hand up if you know someone that owns a business.

Keep your hand up if you think they would like more customers that are already interested in what their business offers.

If you’re like me you have both hands in the air right now (it makes it really hard to type!)

via GIPHY

These businesses would LOVE to pay someone to send targeted clients and customers their way.

The big word there is targeted.

How to get targeted clients

If you run an advert on Facebook and Google and get 100,000 die-hard American football fans to click on a ballet workshop, how many do you think will purchase the workshop?

Yeah… roughly exactly diddly squat!

But what if you sent 100 parents of ballet enthusiasts who have signed posters of Misty Copeland in their bedroom? I have no idea who Misty is either… I just Googled famous ballet dancers!

Yeah… the company would make a lot of sales!

Here’s the truth:

Google, Facebook, Instagram and all online algorithms are becoming so smart that they send targetted ads to people who are looking for them.

Seriously, just think about the types of ads you see on YouTube or Facebook. Are you kind of interested in them?

Of course you are!

You can make your ads super-specific including:

• Age
• Gender
• Where they live
• Language they speak
• Interests
• Behaviours

If you can learn how to create ads on these platforms that get clicked by targeted audiences then a lot of people would love to pay you for this skill.

Positives:

• You can make a lot of money from making good ads
• It’s also a skill you can transfer and use in your own business or help you to set up a profitable blog (i.e. send traffic to your sales pages, affiliate marketing programs etc.)

Negatives:

• It is not a passive income stream as you are trading your time for money
• Creating successful ads is much harder now (people are more aware of them) and you will need to keep learning the skill as it can be different on each platform

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 3 out of 5
• Income Potential: 4 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

16. Writing White Papers

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So a white paper is kind of a cross between a magazine article and a corporate brochure.

It is supposed to help readers solve a problem, understand an issue or make a decision. Here’s an example.

Basically, it should educate and sell.

This is why clients are willing to pay $3,000+ for a 6-14 page white paper.

Just like any skill in life the more you practice writing these the quicker you will become.

Chances are you have been to school.

If you are lucky enough to have done so, you have probably been taught the exact skills needed for writing white papers:

1. Research
2. Writing

Typically you will find the best opportunities from business-to-business companies.

These companies will often have complicated offerings and they want to convince another business to buy their product or service.

This is an area where you may find it hard to get into if you don’t have experience in a particular industry. They can be complex and will often only want to hire people who have a good understanding of it.

But here are some tips to find an opportunity to write white papers:

• Ask existing clients or contacts– explain what a whitepaper is if they don’t know and show them how it can help them
• Look out for companies that write brochures or articles written online and explain how a whitepaper can be better for them
• Offer to write one for a fraction of the normal price (or even free) to get started and build a portfolio (this is one of Grant Sabatier’s top tips for side hustles)

Once you have done one or two it’s much easier to show other businesses what you can do… ideally with their results (everyone likes results… aka how much money you will make them)

Another top Sabatier tip- try to find clients in the same industry so you build on your knowledge after each white paper

Positives:

• You can make a lot of money from a considerably low word count
• It becomes easier to do with practice

Negatives:

• You are trading your time for money
• It can be hard to get started

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 4 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

17. Survey Sites

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*Disclaimer- You will not be able to make $1,000 a month online from this method!*

Maybe the title should be 24 ways to make $1,000+ a month online and one way to make a few hundred dollars (but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it).

Yet some people will try to claim you can earn 4 figures a month from surveys. But they will almost definitely be about to scam you or are just lying!

It is possible to earn $200+ a month online from survey sites though.

It’s not easy to make a lot of money from them but here are the…

Top tips to make surveys worth your while:

1. Create a separate email address so you only get survey emails in there
2. Sign up to as many legit survey sites as possible as they don’t all send surveys out every day
3. Always be honest (it can get confusing keeping up any white lies)
4. Create a habit and complete surveys you are accepted onto at the same time every day i.e. after your breakfast, during your lunch break or my favourite… when you first get to work… cheeky monkey!
5. Avoid paying for a survey site… EVER

Companies are happy to pay people for their opinions as it helps them to make sure their ideas are suitable for the market.

via GIPHY

All you have to do is sign up to legitimate survey sites and offer your honest opinions.

Positives:

• You don’t need any special skills, just the internet!
• You’re about to find out that you can make $40+ within the next 30 minutes

Negatives:

• Some survey sites refuse your surveys (if you don’t fit their criteria)
• It’s only realistic to make a few hundred dollars a month from this method… you’re not going to quit your job from it

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 1 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 1 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 2 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

18. Dog Walking/ Pet Sitting

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This one is technically not online (obviously).

However, it is possible to find opportunities online or through certain apps, such as Rover.

You are probably thinking… is it even possible to make $1,000 a month from this side hustle?

Would you believe me if one guy made over 6 figures a year from this side hustle?

He obviously created a system to outsource it and make it more like a business but it just shows what is possible from seemingly simple money-making opportunities.

Grant Sabatier’s friend was still working in a full-time job when he did this too!

You would be amazed at how many people would love to walk dogs and get paid and there is a growing trend for people to own a dog.

Positives:

• Easy to start as no specific skills are required (apart from walking)
• You can use this as a side hustle in your free time and at times that work for you
• You get to play with dogs without being tied to owning one!

Negatives:

• It’s not passive income (unless you create a business)
• It’s hard (but not impossible) to quit your day job from dog walking

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 1 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 1 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 3 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

More Techie Online Work

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So these side hustles require you to have a bit more knowledge into certain technical aspects.

It doesn’t mean you need to be able to code really hard stuff.

And these skills you need can certainly be learnt quickly and cheaply (or even free thanks to YouTube!)

19. Domain Flipping

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Did you know that website URL’s are kind of like a piece of property or real estate?

You can buy websites that are already making money and carry on taking income.

Kind of like buying then renting out a house.

Or you can buy a website to add value by fixing it up and selling it for a profit (as you can do with a house too).

These are some tips for what to look for in a domain:

• Look for expired domains (DomCop or ExpiredDomains.com)
• Especially 3-4 letter combos, single words or popular double word domain names
• A good domain authority and page authority (use Moz to find this out)
• How many backlinks the website has (which affects DA & PA)
• What the website has been used for previously… try to avoid porn sites or illegal drug dealing etc. (use archive.org)
• Avoid previous Google or Adsense bans (isbanned.com and bannedcheck.com)

Once you buy a website you can also improve its value by “fixing it up” or making it better.

Here are the most common ways you can improve a website:

• Improve the SEO of the website
• Get backlinks to the website from trusted websites (helps to improve Domain Authority and hence SEO)
• Improve the website speed (add or remove certain plugins)
• Use high-speed themes & designs i.e. Genesis (coding can help here)
• Write more content to help rank for more keywords
• Add appropriate affiliate links or display ads to improve the monetisation from the website

This may sound complicated but these are all skills you can learn and there are loads of tools you can use.

For example, aHrefs has the industry’s most accurate backlink checker, which can help you see what backlinks any website gets…

via GIPHY

And as with everything you will only get better at picking these bargain domains over time.

Positives:

• Possible to make money quickly from cheap domains if they have expired
• There is no cap on how many domains you can own & some domain names will go up over time without doing anything (if they become popular or in-demand)
• You can “force” an increase in value quicker by “fixing it up”

Negatives:

• It’s possible to lose money by buying a domain for more than you can sell it for
• It’s not really passive income (although you can buy and hold the website if it generates income)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 3 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 3 out of 5

20. Build Websites

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If you have never done this, it may seem very hard to do.

However, it has never been easier to build your own website. In fact, I can build mine from scratch in 30 seconds thanks to the tools from my #1 recommendation.

I don’t know how to code and I had no idea how to design a website before the one you are reading right now.

Using WordPress means that you can use plugins to make the design and speed of the website very good very quickly.

There are thousands of website themes that you can use, either free or paid versions. This means you can make your website stand out just by uploading a different theme, without needing to know how to code.

Here are some tips for building a website as a side hustle:

• Find a small business or entrepreneur who has a poor quality website or is looking to make one (same tactics as earlier… join FB groups & network on social media… become a friend, don’t stalk people!)
• Go above and beyond for your first client (really understand what they want and do it for whatever price they are willing to pay)
• Once you know how to do that you can use it as an example for another bigger client in the same industry i.e. law firm/ accountancy/ real estate broker etc.

By using those 3 simple steps Grant Sabatier managed to make $50,000 in 4 days from his second client that he built a website for!

Positives:

• People are prepared to pay a lot of money for a good quality website
• You can offer a very specific solution to people’s problems

Negatives:

• There is a learning curve for creating a website exactly how you want it
• Some clients may ask for more technical bits than you are capable of delivering. However, it is possible to outsource those parts or learn them in time.

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

Other Business Opportunities

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It’s possible to use online marketing and the internet to promote or make money in other businesses.

There have been numerous guests on Make Time Online that have utilised these opportunities.

21. Promote Existing Business

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You may have your own physical business already.

It’s easily possible to additionally make $1,000+ a month online by utilising a website and online marketing skills.

Seriously, just imagine you have a plumbing business in San Francisco…

How much more business could you get if you were to rank on page one of Google for “San Francisco Plumbers”?

If you have a niche business in an area that is not competitive, it may be much easier than you think to rank for keywords that can help your business (check out #3 for more info on SEO)

Also, it’s possible to get a lot more attention to your business just by using social media content.

Examples of social media content to grow your business:

• User-generated content. Can you add a competition or prize to someone that posts a picture of something with a #yourbusiness? GoPro does this really well (see pic below)
• Facebook Livestreams show up on peoples notifications
• Podcasts really help to build trust (see #9)
• Infographics (use canva to design them for free)
• Live webinars to give people the chance to interact and ask questions (you can upload these to YouTube or Facebook after to re-use the content)
• Client testimonials (videos are ideal)
• Guides or eBooks

Getting people to engage and interact is one of the best ways to grow your business. All social media channels can help you to do that.

Positives:

• Your business can grow exponentially
• Very little monetary investment is required to build an online social media presence

Negatives:

• You may need to invest some time into learning how to create a website and write content to be found in Google
• It can be time-consuming to try to use ALL social media channels (focus on one or 2 to build engagement before trying to be everywhere!)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 3 out of 5

22. Build a Personal Brand

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This is quite a hard one to measure.

It also closely links to the previous make money idea.

But, it’s possible to use the internet to create a personal brand that can help you in any business or area of life you move into.

Here are some ways to build a personal brand:

• Social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube etc.)
• Starting a podcast
• A website or blog

A personal brand means you are much more likely to connect with your audience and build trust over time. This means if you come to sell anything in the future or are looking to raise capital, you will already have people from around the world that know and trust you.

The key to building this brand is to be completely yourself and honest at all times.

People can tell when someone is being fake or trying too hard to be someone they are not.

If you don’t know something or are trying to learn something then let your audience “follow your journey” rather than claiming to be an expert already.

Or you can even be a “research assistant” for them!

Positives:

• It’s not very much extra work to take a picture or video to share what you are doing
• It can help you to stay accountable with your goals and vision

Negatives:

• It can feel like you are putting in work without seeing an instant reward
• It’s hard to measure exactly what value your personal brand actually has

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 3 out of 5
• Passive Income: 3 out of 5

Investing

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Some people think that you can only invest when you have money in the bank to do so.

But this way of thinking is exactly why some people never have any month at the end of the money.

It’s possible to find investment opportunities online for anyone’s budget and with a bit of creativity.

It’s also possible to make $1,000+ a month online using these investments.

Just by planning for these opportunities, it helps to set a budget as you know exactly what that money is going towards.

23. Invest In Index Funds

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The hidden in plain sight secret of the rich…

If you’re looking for truly passive income this is the one for you.

Obviously you need to have the monies to invest in the first place but by using “the 4% rule” it’s possible to retire early and be inflation-proof!

“The 4% Rule” Overview:

1. Work out how much money you (and your immediate family) spend in a year
2. Times that number by 25
3. Stick it into index funds
4. Retire & never need to work another day in your life

The reason this works is that index funds will return a conservative 7% interest per year over the long term.

So if you were to take 4% out of your “pot” at the end of the year, you still are leaving the “pot” to grow by 3%+ each year (which should cover inflation).

For example:

1. You spend $40,000 a year
2. $40k x 25 = $1 million
3. After one year your pot = $1,070,000
4. You take 4% to live off aka $42,800
5. Your pot is now worth $1,027,200
6. Repeat and grow!

If you’re like me you’re probably thinking, well how am I supposed to get a pot of $1 million?

Erm… hello… have you not been reading this article?!!

I’m not saying it’s easy but guess what… it has been done (no prizes for guessing which podcast guest did it!)

Index funds capitalise on 3 things:

1. Compound interest
2. You pay the lowest fees for a “managed portfolio of stocks and shares
3. You limit human error (and emotions of buying high and selling low)

I’m not going to go into detail here about why index funds beat any other form of investment in the stock market over the long run (the podcast series below does that for you)

@WarrenBuffett talks about his 10yr bet against the hedge fund. Best ambassador of index funds. #BRKLiveStream #brk pic.twitter.com/iQMzxOgR1Q

— olivier lorrain (@olorrain) April 30, 2016

Positives:

• If you invest with vanguard it is truly passive income (you only need to login once a year to withdraw your $40k!)
• If you don’t live in the USA, UK or Australia you can invest with Saxo bank or Internaxx in index funds ETF’s

Negatives:

• You need the money in the first place
• You are reliant on the market to continue what it’s done for the last 100+ years (until the current financial system changes it is very likely this pattern will continue in the long run)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 2 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 5 out of 5
• Income Potential: 4 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

This is the exact strategy Grant Sabatier used to retire early. You can check out the 3 part podcast series on index funds (roughly 20 min an episode):

1. Why you should invest in index funds right now
2. How to invest in index funds
3. The ultimate strategy to invest in index funds

24. Invest In Property/ Real Estate

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So property can be more hands-on than paper assets, such as index funds.

But it does mean you have more control if you have the right knowledge.

If you buy a property with positive cash flow (the rental income makes more money than it costs each month) then you are “property bubble proof”.

Hence, if the market crashes, you can hold your property and continue to rent it out for a profit.

Over time the value of property continues to rise (for the same reason index funds do… the current fiat currency financial system).

You can actually use online systems to help build a portfolio, such as:

• Social media
• Podcasts. You can start one yourself (like Tej did) or The Property Podcast has everything you need to invest
• Blogs

You may be wondering how.

Well, Facebook for one is full of property groups.

Even if you don’t have the money to invest but want to get involved you can start trying to find “property deals” on and sell them on.

Again, if you have good personal branding online this will really help to find potential investors that would love to buy that deal from you.

This is, in fact, how I have managed to turn a 3-bed terraced house into an 8 bedroom HMO in the UK, whilst living in Qatar. I connected with many property investors and developers until we found a deal that suited us.

If it wasn’t for social media this wouldn’t have been possible.

Positives:

• It’s possible to find deals on social media or other online channels
• It’s possible to sell deals in the same way
• You have a lot of control over the asset with the right property education (there are so many strategies)

Negatives:

• Property is less liquid than other assets and can be slow (due to regulations and hoops to jump through)
• Even if you use lettings agents and outsource work it’s not as passive as paper assets
• If you need to sell at a bad time you can lose a lot of money (the key is to only invest what you won’t need in the near-mid future)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 5 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 4 out of 5

25. Invest In A Friend/ Startup

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This one is riskier than other methods of investing.

But the rewards can be much larger.

These opportunities can also be presented from people building a personal brand online. If you know the person and trust them, you’re much more likely to invest in them.

There are startup companies starting all the time and they often need investment to get them off the ground.

Before investing in a startup make sure you do your research and don’t just jump in because someone is your friend!

via GIPHY

Here are some things to look for:

• A strong target market for the product or service
• Good margins
• Strong management team
• Credible business plan and projections
• An exit strategy
• Passion and commitment

It’s possible to invest in startups on crowdfunding platforms or if you know someone starting a business.

Positives:

• Possible to make a big return on your investment
• It’s possible to get paid passive income from dividends or a lump sum if there is an exit strategy to sell for a certain price

Negatives:

• It can be very hard to know which startups will be successful and which ones will flop
• Your investment can be tied up for some time before you get any returns

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 5 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 5 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

Proven Ways To Make $1,000 A Month Online Summary

So there you have it!

25 legit ways that “normal” people make $1,000 a month online.

Feel free to check out the podcast show notes at the bottom of any opportunity that interests you. Each one will have more tips and advice on what to do to get started for that money-making idea.

Here’s the brutal truth though…

None of this is taught in schools.

And nobody is going to help you or your family learn this.

So if you think this could help someone you know please do share this in any way you can.

5 Proven Strategies to Make Money Online Blogging- Elna Cain

In the spirit of full transparency, know that this Elna Cain podcast show notes contain 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 the full disclosure policy.

You probably know that blogging can be a great way to make money online.

Some people think there is only one way to do it. In fact, it has been proven by real people that it’s possible to make money from blogging using different strategies.

This podcast with Elna Cain will show you 5 different ways you can make money online using blogging.

Listen in to hear us chat about:

• Different websites that Elna has used to make money online
• How she started making money online with twin babies (they were 1-year-olds at the time!)
• How Elna has created an amazing community of 11,000 Moms in under 5 years.
• What she would tell herself if she could go back in time

Listen on Apple Podcasts/ Google Podcasts

Elna Cain Background

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Elna started trying to make money online when her twins were super young.

She didn’t want to go back to work and miss out spending time with them.

Even getting a part-time job would have eaten up most of her income from childcare, gas money etc.

Does this sound familiar to you?

So she spent time learning about making money online whilst the kids were napping.

Freelance writing interested her and after putting in some time and effort she got some opportunities to write for money.

5 Ways to Make Money Online Blogging

Elna has an amazingly diverse experience of making money online.

In the podcast, she actually talks about 5 different strategies to make money online using blogging, that she has personally used.

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#1 Freelance Writing

elnacain.com

This was her first gig!

It was the obvious way to make money online.

Write something for someone willing to pay for it.

Simple right?

But how did she actually find her first opportunity?

Here are some of the things she did to get her name “out there”:

• Guest posting
• Using Twitter
• Use LinkedIn
• Following brands
• Searching job board sites i.e. Problogger

This is how she got her first payment:

She connected with a project on wheels.com from Pro bloggers job board site.

She didn’t know anything about “cars”!

But she did know that she could research a lot of the content needed i.e. gas prices etc.

She mentioned some other websites that you can find jobs such as Fiverr, Upwork and Freelancer but she didn’t personally have much luck with them.

Positives:

• Make money quickly
• You can research topics you’re not sure about
• You can learn more about blogging, whilst getting paid

Negatives:

• You are trading your time for money (not passive income)
• It can be hard to find good opportunities

So what else does she have up her sleeve?

#2 Viral Blogging

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smartmomideas.com

The idea on this website is to create viral content and get it shared lots on Pinterest.

This pretty much means:

1. Write huge “list posts” that people can save and bookmark it
2. Writing topics that people are searching for already

So how do you know what people are searching for?

Simply search popular content on Pinterest.

Here are some viral ideas as examples in the parenting niche:

• Ultimate guides i.e. Birth plan
• Specific topics- Get your baby to sleep through the night, avoid pain with labour etc.
• Anything visual i.e. Recipes do well

Note you can use any niche that does well on Pinterest and look out for the most viral pins.

Positives:

• Get traffic quickly
• Viral spikes (using social media i.e. Pinterest)
• Generate money quickly through ads

Negatives:

• Time-consuming
• Need a budget to hire writers to create the content
• Reliant on Pinterest

Top tips:

• Hire freelance writers ideally “ghostwriters” (write anonymously in your own name)

You can even help new bloggers that want to make money quickly with a site like this.

Related content:

• How to Use Pinterest for Beginners
• Blog Income Reports Study- How the 7 Best Niches Make Money
• How does Blogging Make Money?

#3 Contributor Blogs

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imperfectlyperfectmama.com

If you’re like me, you’re about to learn something new…

Have a website that other people contribute to it.

The principle is simple…

Get traffic to the website then other people are happy to write on it for free to promote themselves or another website.

AKA no writing required by you!

Top tips:

• Use a page called “write for us”
• Leverage Facebook groups or communities you are part of
• Potentially buy a website that has aged content already (great idea if you can!)
• Oversee the first post by a contributor
• Give access for them to contribute after that & review all posts

Positives:

• Monetises by ads so it’s very hands-off
• Less time consuming as you don’t need to keep writing content
• Possible to monetise quickly
• Don’t need set writers

Negatives:

• You need a following or community to help write content
• Need to build it up if you don’t want to pay for writers

This is such a simple, yet really effective strategy to make money online blogging.

#4 SEO Focus

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This strategy is what I call the “traditional” way to blog.

You write content to be found in search engines so you get monthly traffic without doing any other promotion.

But…

There is a good way to do this and a not so good way.

Here are Elna’s tips:

• Look at other blogs and work out how they are succeeding
• Replicate their content ideas… but make it your own
• Find the topics that are highly searched on Google in your niche.
• Check out the top posts for a keyword and replicate their post style i.e. list posts, tutorial, review based.

Positives:

• More reliable traffic every month compared to Pinterest or other social media platforms
• No extra work required to advertise your content
• Therefore, you can create more systems or “funnels” to create passive income

Negatives:

• Takes longer to get traffic and monetise the website
• More research is required to find low competition keywords
• It can feel like nothings happening for quite some time, so it’s easy to give up or get demotivated

Related content:

• Affiliate Marketing Online: The Secrets Revealed
• Save Hours of Time & Money with these Resources
• Discover the Perfect Part Time Job Online

#5 Creating Courses

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elnacain.com

This one has been covered quite a few times on the podcast.

It’s really the number one way that bloggers tend to go from turning their hobby into a 6 figure (or more) business.

Positives:

• Unlimited income potential (you set the price and sales pages etc.)
• You can use funnels and techniques to automate sales
• You will likely to create something that you enjoy talking about or are passionate about.

Negatives:

• Time-consuming to create
• It takes more learning to create the sales pages and get used to the different software or systems needed
• There’s no guarantee anyone will buy it, it’s up to you to spread the word at the start

You probably already noticed this.

But, many of the strategies Elna mentioned involved…

BONUS- Pinterest Focus

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First of all, it’s important to realise Pinterest can be fickle.

Traffic can come and go due to viral spikes.

BUT…

Pinterest is still the quickest way to get a lot of traffic to your blog.

Many of Elna’s websites have used Pinterest to get traffic quickly.

Her top tip for getting traffic quickly:

• Focus on Pinterest SEO

This will help you hone in on the right type of audience & followers.

The amount of followers you have is not super important, but the right audience is very important. If they don’t engage on your account then your pins will never be shared.

How Long Will it Take to See Traffic From Pinterest?

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Elna explains that if you have things set up well you can see traffic within 30 to 60 days.

This will only work if you use Tailwind and also get onto good group boards early.

However, group boards are not what they once were.

Saying that, if you only get into good group boards they can really help especially at the beginning.

In fact, pinning to poor group boards can really hurt your Pinterest account.

Here is a great way to check and see if a group board is worth pinning to.

It’s recommended to use Pinterest at the start for many niches, then branch out with other platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and SEO.

Bloggers Tools & Advice

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A really important point that Elna makes is that your first blog may not be a success.

But that’s OK.

Use your first blog as a chance to test things out. Try YouTube or different social media platforms if you want to.

You can always start a new one with the skills you learn.

Another great tip is to find ways to delegate and outsource things as soon as possible.

This leads nicely onto…

The Best Blogging Tools

Even if you cannot afford to pay someone to help out, you can easily use some of these tools to help:

• Tailwind (for Pinterest mainly and Instagram)
• Buffer (for Facebook)
• ConverKit (email autoresponder)
• Convertbox (opt-in forms)

So, the final golden nuggets from this Elna Cain podcast is…

Top 3 Tips if Elna Cain Could go Back in Time

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Here is what she would tell herself if she could go back in time to when her twins were born…

• You will get some sleep eventually!
• You’re doing a good job as a Mom
• Keep your head down (don’t be deflated by others success stories or negativity online)

It really is amazing how far she has come in the last few years.

Plus, she’s so modest and down to earth!

Full Elna Cain Podcast Transcript

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Links

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If you’d like to get in contact with Elna here are the best places to find her:

• Facebook Group Mom to Mompreneur
• Twinsmommy
• Elna Cain website

There are also links under each strategy to see a real example of what it looks like.

Elna Cain Podcast Summary

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Here are my top 5 takeaways from this chat:

1. If you enjoy what you do, it won’t feel like work
2. It is possible for anyone to start doing this (even if you think you haven’t got the time or knowledge… if a Mom with twin babies can, anyone can!)
3. You will make mistakes at the beginning & your first blog may not be your best one, but that’s OK.
4. There are different types of websites and strategies to make money online
5. Focus on your Pinterest SEO

Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. What was your main takeaway from this chat? Was there anything you learnt or something you’d like to know more about?

Drop a comment below!