For Love Or Money?
After making over $10,000 in 6 months of writing at Frugaling, a number of people inquired about how they might mimic the results. No single recipe will get you from start to money, but there are some things you can do to put yourself in a position to succeed.
Too many people are focused on pumping out a certain number of articles per day, week, or month. The goal makes sense: The more I publish, the more I’ll get my name out. But when you’re just starting out, there isn’t a network to share and enjoy your content. Eventually, most sites/blogs/independent writers lose momentum, and the strategy fails.
We’re all motivated by the idea that our work may someday be read, and it can be challenging to publish and parish – losing sight about what intrinsically interests you about a subject. Simultaneously, in the most productive push, people make the least amount of money. It’s a lose-lose – a recipe for disaster.
This article will walk you through a process of creating and cultivating a site worth visiting. From there, I’ll talk about how you can start making money. Between advertisers, private connections, and affiliate sales, you can begin raking in some serious dough.
Here are 5 steps you must take to monetize your blog successfully:
1. Create Content Worth Sharing, Network Like A Boss
A number of people have approached me and asked how they can make five figures in 6 months. The road is circuitous and doesn’t always end up with the success I had. There were a number of pleasant accidents that led me here, but it all started with a fundamental building block: Creating strong stories and content.
I didn’t set out to create a money making machine. Frankly, my writing style is more opinionated and personal than financial. I wanted to put the personal inΒ personal finance. This was going to be my story. If I made a little money along the way, great! At the heart of my decision to write about student loan debt and other financial concerns was my own desire to write about what I was learning. I intrinsically wanted to be doing this – money wasn’t the sole motivator.
From very humble beginnings, I wrote what I considered to be deep, thoughtful pieces about struggle and areas of my life that I needed to improve. There were many cracks in my budget, ideas about finance, and how to make my small salary work. Through writing and getting feedback from others, I gained some confidence in my monthly budget, created some rock solid plans, and became more frugal. By writing, I was embodying what I wanted to become, and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Beyond my content and spending time to better my writing style, I networked as much as I could. I found people of all personal financial stripes to trade links, comment on work, and email for help. There were times when I frustrated, pestered people or asked for too much. I realized that some people didn’t really like human-to-human interaction in this world of personal finance. But others loved it, and that’s where I devoted 80 percent of my time.
Every website I visited was an opportunity to network and connect. Those connections led to Twitter followers, Facebook likes, and much more. Between creating content worth sharing, reading others’ sites, commenting on great articles, and establishing relationships with those in the field, I was primed for advertisers.
2. Invest In Your Theme, Design
When I first turned the server space on and started Frugaling on May 4th, 2013, this site looked like a patchwork quilt. It was cute and homey, but unprofessional and unattractive in certain parts. I felt limited in time and money to change the website’s look and feel. Unfortunately, by not evolving the website over time, I was limiting my potential for growth and new readers.
A theme and solid, consistent design cannot guarantee you success. Similarly, great content that isn’t accessible and easy to read will just be swept under the rug. To be in the right place for success, you need the content and theme to match. I’ve been to many personal blogs over the years, and when I see something that’s poorly contrasted, uses strange fonts, and/or doesn’t offer me an easy way to navigate, I lose interest.
If your theme doesn’t seem professional, you may be losing traffic; at least, from people like me. Colors should be themed throughout your site. Text should be black on a lighter color – preferably white. Use smoother fonts for easier, more friendly reading. These things should be common sense, but mishaps occur all the time. Don’t make it challenging for me to read your site!
Over the last few months, I’ve received a few different emails about my own themes. Generally, I point them in two directions: buy a theme or modify a free theme. Buying one is simple and opens the world to terrific customer service. There are traditionally money back guarantees that help reassure you as well. Personally, I’m frugal and cheap. The theme you see today is absolutely free. You can check it out here.
3. Apply For And Install Google AdSense
Now you can actually think about making money. That day has come. You’ve created a wonderful entrance to your site and you’re publishing terrific articles. The flow of traffic to your website has steadily increased. Maybe you even have a little following.
For many, their first advertisement dollars start rolling in from Google’s AdSense platform. Overall, AdSense has been the second largest money maker for me. It’s one of the largest ad networks in the world, and provides advertisers access to nearly every popular site, and publishers with a steady stream of financial support. Somewhere in between, Google takes a hearty chunk out of the profits and provides a seamless process.
The Google network is relatively easy to apply to and setup. Once you’ve been approved, you can begin plastering your site with advertisements. Meanwhile, your visitors may be shocked by a sudden onslaught of ads. This can be a seriously unwelcome and unfriendly wakeup call to many. If you can, be cautious and deliberate when choosing the placement and number of ads.
Initially, I placed ads in the content of single posts, but I quickly learned how annoying that is as a reader to withstand that advertising onslaught. To be popular with more critical social networks such as Reddit, you cannot place ads inside an individual article. If you do that, you’re setting yourself up for failure – and it’s clear you’re only in this for money, and not reader enjoyment. All I’d suggest is be contentious about ad locations and frequency. Respect your readers and they will honor the service you provide them.
4. Available, Accessible, And In Demand
As your Alexa rankings rise and traffic statistics show a growing, thriving audience, you should begin thinking about private advertising opportunities. Month-to-month Frugaling regularly has around 14-15,000 page views. At that rate, I’m about a fifth of some of the large personal finance sites’ traffic. While there’s room to grow, advertisers may be interested in a niche audience.
Private advertisers tend to pay per month, which necessitates that they understand your current traffic. All of this information needs to be packaged up and easily accessible to possible companies. Just like making your site easy to read, offer advertising opportunities that are easy for companies to understand. Create an advertising page with some basic information.
Offer some ability for companies to get ahold of you. I recommend a contact form because it shows the IP address of the person. If you’re approached by a scammer or spammer, showing an email address may aid them in stealing something from you. I’d highly recommend the default contact forms within WordPress’Β Jetpack plugin.
Private advertisements are far and few between, but landing something like this puts you a cut above the rest. Following these aforementioned steps will put you in good territory to get one.
5. Share Top-Notch Affiliate Offers
Making over $10,000 was a shock, and the big money was with affiliate links and articles. One day, I logged into my bank account to find about $2,000 deposited from a leading affiliate company. Suddenly, I felt this infusion of energy and confusion over why I had made so much.
I looked at my Google Analytics account to find a huge amount of traffic frequenting one of my affiliate articles. Naturally and organically, people were finding and making their way to my site. I didn’t have to do anything and suddenly I was making up to $3,000 in some months.
Affiliate companies and links can be great fun to work with, but I highly recommend you establish a strong audience before applying in a network. First of all, it’ll make you less likely to be outright rejected from the entire network. Secondarily, you’ll be far more likely to be accepted by individual companies. The best affiliate offers require some serious website traffic. You’ll just be declined time and time again if you go into a network without a sufficient baseline.
Affiliate offers are like the top of the food pyramid: use sparingly. In my experience, they come in handy when recommending products I already use. For instance, I use BigScoots web hosting, which can be purchased here. If you signup for an affiliate company and just share all the links you can, you’ll likely lose readers and credibility. I find it to be one of the more annoying parts about visiting certain personal finance sites. They clearly aren’t writing about a product because they truly love it, but you’ll find tens of articles that gush about for-profit products. Both as a consumer and publisher, you should be wary of selling out in this manner – it may tarnish your reputation to visitors.
Now What?
Google has an unofficial company motto that says, “Don’t be evil.” It just means, do what’s in the best interest of most and be kind while doing it. Sometimes Google fails to live up to that standard, but the philosophy is still exceptionally important.
You may want to monetizing your blog and make a few bucks doing something you love, but don’t lose sight of why you started writing. If it was simply to make boatloads of cash, you’re likely not going to make it very far in this business or with your motivation to continue. Blogging and writing regularly must be a labor of love – don’t become evil in the need to monetize your blog.
Keep your affiliate articles, ads, and private deals at a minimum. The ideal is a safe, comfortable place for visitors to stay for a while and browse around. There’s no need to inundate them with popups, popunders, multiple ads in content, and affiliate links everywhere you look. Over time, hopefully, readers will see what you have to offer is worth it and give you a referral. But you have to start with the fundamentals: great content and design. Once you’ve built a solid foundation, get ready for some profits.
Good luck!
Stephanie@Mrs.Debtfighter says
Great advice! I am a fairly new blogger so this is very helpful! I hadn’t heard about Alexa ratings yet, still learning and understanding blog design, need to contact information! Thanks! π
FI Fighter says
Great tips! I really enjoyed this article, and will try to incorporate some of the strategies you mentioned. Congrats on all the success so far!
Debt RoundUp says
Nice work Sam! You are definitely in the minority of people who have made that much in less than a year. Most bloggers will make nothing, and others will make a lot. It is a difficult game, but you figured it off early!
Kali @ CommonSenseMillennial says
Nice job! I’m one of those who has made exactly $0 from my blog so far (January will be my 6 month mark), so this was helpful. I hope to eventually monetize my site, but I feel like I’m not quite there yet. I will be bookmarking this article to return to, however, when I’m a little closer to making this happen π
Fast Weekly says
Thanks for the article Sam. I always like to get ideas from bloggers who are more successful than I am. I completely agree success is content driven. I need to relaunch my blogs sometime soon as well. I currently run three and have met some truly great people. It was really exciting to consistently bring in revenue, but I’m a long way from your kind of revenue. Congrats! Have a great night
-Bryan
get rich with me says
Its impressive how you have gained such a large volume of regular traffic so quickly.
Well done !
I hope all this blogging isn’t disrupting your studies too much.
Stefanie @ thebrokeandbeautifullife says
Thanks for sharing these Sam. For some reason, while I’ve had quite a bit of success building my traffic, I haven’t had as much success monetizing. Just about everything I’ve made has come from freelance writing work.
Sam Lustgarten says
Stefanie,
You’re going to be there in no time! You’ll be rolling in it. π
Best of luck,
Sam
Michelle @ fitnpoor.com says
Great points! Your sites progress is inspiring for new bloggers! I’d love to pick your brain sometime soon!
Sam Lustgarten says
Shoot me an email and my brain is yours! π
Syed @ The Broke Professional says
Great article Sam. I think networking is kind of a weak link for me so I will get on top of that. Thanks will refer to this in the future.
Micro says
Congrats on the great progress. I’ve been working on my website since June and have earned about $3 so reading something like this is nice. I also like that you mentioned how adsense worked for you. That’s been my only real attempt at monitization and I’m hoping it can at least get to the point of paying the server costs.
Brian says
Good read! Thanks for the info!
Justin @ RootofGood says
Good tips. Adsense is neat because you make money without really doing things. I feel like affiliate links take more work, and then you have the ethical question of promoting something because it is awesome, or just promoting it to make a buck. You’ve highlighted that ethical quandary well – do you want to risk losing credibility with your readers?
Thanks for sharing!
MITM says
Great advice. I’m new to blogging so this helped break it down for me. I have a LONG way to go.
I’m going to re-read this article a lot as a I tweak my production goals. What do you think are some reasonable goals for a beginner who also works full time? Right now I’m in the initial stages of building traffic, so my goals are to
1.) Write 3 articles a week and a 4th to “cache” for when I’m away or busy. And any more I write over that I will “cache”. I want my postings to be at a consistent volume so that visitors/followers know what to expect and advertisers (in the future) know my site traffic and postings are dependable.
2.) Submit at least 1 guest post to another website per month.
3.) Comment, trackback, or email other blogs at least 10 times per week. (Since most folks don’t read far down into the comments, I usually only comment on a blog if I’m in the first 10 people to comment on it, so it limits how many I do.)
Thoughts on those and/or other goals I can set?
Mel says
This has been a really helpful and insightful post. Thanks so much! I linked up as an Amazon Affiliate, but actually find the stats page sort of confusing.
Does Google Adsense let you select the items you promote? I liked that I could put up a banner for Amazon Local with their program since it’s actually something I think my readers might like and I’m fond of using it myself.
Also I totally agree with Syed that networking is rough. Definitely not my strong point either.
Eliza @ Happy Simple Living says
Thanks for sharing your experience and tips. So far I’ve resisted sponsored posts, but maybe I need to re-think that after reading your article. Great ideas!
Sam Lustgarten says
Hi Eliza,
Thanks for your comment! I don’t know if I think sponsored posts are positive for your site. Personally, I like writing affiliate articles. Sponsored posts are looked down upon by the google world of web rank. Stay away from those offers.
All the best,
Sam
Michelle says
Thank you very much for your tips and ideas! I have begun the process of monetizing my site and have been working on a way to do it that won’t be annoying to my readers. I’m unable to become an Amazon Affiliate (live in Colorado) so I have been looking into other networks to connect with.
SB @ One Cent at a Time says
This is really nice article, coming from someone who had seen success.
Lena @ WhatMommyDoes says
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and especially the details! Sometimes I get in an AdSense focused rut, but I’m starting to reconsider affiliate links.
Telemill says
I like the fact that you remind us that every website you visit is an opportunity to connect! Yes. That’s what social media (social marketing) is about, connecting — we forget that sometimes, really we do. It’s important that we realize where our REAL opportunities lie. Thank you for this. I needed the reminder!
Celeste says
I’m like many of the commenters here and trying to figure out how to start creating some revenue from my site. Just added Adsense and some Amazon ads, and I’m just beginning to explore some possibilities. Will be reading through some of your other posts, too. Thanks.
Asad Zaman Khan says
I was thinking from a long time to start blogging. The ideas you provided are very informative & helpful not only to me, but also to those budding Bloggers, who are ready to take a plunge in this blogging world.