How I Made Money Blogging in my First Month

My third child was born at the end of February. With her birth came the realization that I had no business going back to my job with three kids at home. This being said, I started endless research into work-from-home opportunities, so that I could help my husband to support the household by bringing in an income while still staying home with my kiddos.

While the internet provides hundreds of opportunities to make money online, the one that peaked my interest the most was blogging. I have always been a writer, and the prospect of making money to write about what I know, and the experiences I have, completely blew my mind.

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Truth be told, I was very skeptical in the beginning that it was possible to make money blogging. I saw the opportunity as something that I was going to sink money into getting started, just to find myself unable to figure out how to monetize my blog. I researched day and night for a good month before I was willing to drop any kind of investment into my blogging future. Finally, my husband pushed me hard enough to just go ahead and spend the money to get started, and now I will never look back.

If you have done any kind of research into blog monetization, you will see testimonials from bloggers who tell you about how they make money while they sleep. My blog has been live for just over a month now and I can personally tell you, it is totally possible! While my blog has not made the $1000+ dollars in the first month that some bloggers claim to make, as a brand new, novice blogger I have managed to make just over $4.00 profit in my first month. This is huge to me, as I still have no idea what I am doing, and therefore I know the only direction for this income to go is up as I continue to expand my knowledge and learn about more tools available to me!

So, without further distraction, here are the steps that I took in my first month to get started making money with my blog.

Find a Domain Host and Make the Jump

The first thing that I had to accomplish was finding a domain host I was comfortable investing in. In order to have your own site, you have to have a domain to host it on. For me, Bluehost was the way to go. This was largely due to their affordability, with domain hosting starting as low as $3.95/month. While that does not sound like a lot, you are required to pay for your hosting a year at a time, so it was a bit more salty than I was willing to spend with just any hosting site I could find. Bluehost has been around for years and is one of the top 20 hosting sites on the internet. Plus, many of the bloggers I found hosted with them, so they had to be doing something right.

Once you purchase your hosting domain and set up your site basics (URL, Sitename, etc.) then you get to move on to the next step I took.

Finding a Theme to Satisfy My niche

In order to make your site easier on the eyes, a theme is a must. While there are themes that are free, they are not as complex and, for lack of better words, pretty, as some of the themes you can buy. For myself, I had looked into both free and paid theme options, and research had told me that paid themes performed better and kept readers coming back, so paid is what I went with. I purchased my theme directly through my Bluehost site, therefore it downloaded easily to my domain hosting for me and made it relatively simple for me to customize.

Start Writing

Content, content, content. In order to make money, you have to have content, and good quality content for my readers is something I began focusing on from early on. Today, I am making money through the ads placed in my posts. Without posts that people want to read, these ads would not be being seen. Also, without having posts to drive traffic to my site, there would be no being paid either, so content is key.

I began by writing two posts a week. While I have not been consistent with this overall due to trying to post with a newborn, a toddler, and an 8-year-old pre-teen, I plan to try to improve the consistency of my posting schedule in the weeks to come!

Apply as an Affiliate

You would be shocked how many places will pay you to have their ads placed on your site! I began applying to affiliates once I had the first post published on my site. Some advertisers, like Google AdSense, will want to see several good-quality posts before you are approved. Others, like Amazon and some advertisers on Share a Sale, will approve you from the get-go. Start applying with advertisers who interest you and see where it goes!

Right now, I have a hodgepodge of different advertisers ads on my site. Some of these ads pay per-view, some pay per-click, and some pay per person who clicks the ad, and then buys something from the company. As of today, the only advertiser I have earned through is Google AdSense, however, as my blog grows I am hoping to expand my income with other advertisers as well!

Promote, Promote, Promote

As I stated before, you will not make money if you do not have traffic. An important thing to consider when beginning blogging is that people will not just automatically come to your site from the get-go, you have to promote it. Social media, word of mouth, and search engine optimization are all great ways to promote your blog, and as you grow you will find yourself using all of them. As of today, my blog sits at just over 1,300 page views in its first month, and while I am excited about that, I hope to grow to over 5,000 page views this month! Focusing a little bit of time each day will go a long way in increasing your traffic, growing your blog, and increasing your income!

As I have said before, while I have only made just over $4.00 at the end of my first month, I am still stoked that I am bring in an income from home doing something I love. While my family will not be living off my blog income for this month, I do hope to be making some major contributions to my household income by the time my blog is six months old. As I continue to learn along my journey, you can bet that I will be here continuing to share, so be sure to stay tuned!

In the meantime, are you considering starting a blog? What is holding you back? Have you successfully monetized a blog and have a tip for me and my readers in our journey to grow? Let me know please, I would love to hear from all of you!