Swetha asks, “I am having a few ideas to create a blog but not sure how to monetize it and also when to monetize it….Also, after how many months should the blog be monetized? Thank you!”
As soon as I read this question, I went straight to work on creating this post. I absolutely love her questions. Swetha realizes that there IS a time to do things and a time not to do things, and that’s really admirable!
While there are a myriad of ways to monetize your blog, I believe, there is a sequential step-by-step process in which you need to take to get the most amount of success on your blog.
The absolute BIGGEST MISTAKE I see new bloggers make is they become so obsessed with trying to make money blogging fast that they monetize TOO SOON! It’s usually those same bloggers I see crash and burn and never reach their FULL potential of where they could have gotten, had they of done it right.
Wanna know how to properly monetize your blog? Keep reading!
Tips on How to Properly Monetize Your Blog
After personally coaching many clients as well as running my own blog, here is your bird eye view of how to properly monetize your blog to become profitable.
Step 1: Set up a solid foundation
Do not go live right away! When I first started this site, I waited several months before going live. This blog was password protected and just for my friends eyes. It wasn’t until I saw my friends SHARING that password with everyone they’d meet, that I realized, I needed to go live.
While I didn’t intend this blog to be for the public at all in the beginning, I’m glad I did make it live, and I’m equally glad I waited to go live.
It wasn’t about getting all my ducks in a row, to be honest. I didn’t spell check ANYTHING. I didn’t have pictures. I didn’t capitalize the beginnings of sentences. It was just basically emails to my friends in a place they could all access all at once. That’s it. No bells, no whistles, just text.
I had about 20-30 posts on my blog before I went live and I feel that’s key. I believe you should have at LEAST 20-30 posts on your blog BEFORE you open it to the world.
Here’s why.
When someone comes to your site, they will instantly judge you AND remember you. They see 3 posts, think you’re a noob, and NEVER come back! It’s just the way it is. You absolutely CANNOT look like a new blogger. That’s bad. Fill that bad boy up like crazy. Create your navigation bar. Fill that up. Create your about me page, your newsletter subscribe box, your contact page, your disclosure page.
Have absolutely everything ready before opening. Think about it like this….
Your blog is a store. Would a store open to the public before building the store? Would it open to the public before tiding up everything, installing cash registers, testing everything to make sure it works, AND most importantly, stocking its shelves?
Absolutely NOT….so why would you?!!
Whether you think about your blog as a store or not, that’s exactly what you are. You are a brand. YOU ARE THE brand.
If you open your store too early, people will see your shelves not stocked, get mad, never come back, and go to the competitor down the street. Most likely, they will tell their friends, hey this store is awful. Because negative news always travels faster than positive news.
Listen…do NOT open too early. I know how tempting it is, but if you plan on making a good income from your blog, you want to set yourself up for the most success possible.
Step 2: Work on traffic
Wanna monetize? Great…but not yet.
After your store shelves are stocked and you’re ready to go live, you need to work on getting traffic. There are many, many ways of getting traffic, but for the sake of time, I won’t get into traffic building too much within this post.
My personal favorite ways of growing blog traffic are:
- Produce great content (this is where it all starts really. If you have awesome cornerstone content, you won’t have to go out and search for traffic, they will find YOU!)
- Interlinking posts on your site
- Guest posting on other bloggers sites in your niche
- Telling your friends, family, and people you meet about your blog
- Be active on social media (but only one platform at a time)
- Be SEO friendly (I use the Genesis theme, which has FAN-tastic SEO as well as the Yoast SEO plug in)
- Get involved. Make friends, participate in groups where your ideal audience hangs out. Get to know other bloggers
- Get WiseStamp for your email signature
- Create roundups that link to other bloggers (show them you’re a team player and be generous)
- Blog regularly and consistently
- Respond to your emails and comments personally
Step 3: Add ads to your site
BUT…don’t even THINK about doing so until your site has 50,000 steady pageviews a month. I know, harsh, right?! Listen, if you try to monetize too early, all people will see you as is someone who only cares about money. I KNOW you need to put food on your table. I’m a single mom! I get it. But you have to be patient and wait. The last thing you want to do is scare of the traffic you DO have.
Once you are at 50,000 pageviews a month, I recommend Google AdSense and Media.net. They are my two favorite ads companies.
While I personally do not have any ads on this site (I took them down when I hit 3 years blogging), I was making around $5,000/month in ads revenue alone from the above two companies. The trick to making great money with ads is to set up channels with Google AdSense (just look up YouTube videos on how to do that) as well as running A/B tests on your site.
If you’re using a heatmap (here’s the one I recommend), you can see where your audience is clicking and start placing ads there. The best places to position ads that I’ve found as well as with my coaching clients have been a horizontal ad underneath your navigation bar, a sidebar ad that is above the fold, meaning, if a reader comes to your site, they should be able to see that ad without scrolling down the page, as well as underneath your content within your posts.
Those three spots really seem to do well for many people.
Sidenote: Don’t put too many ads on your site. A reader should never see more than 2 ads on their computer screen at a time. If it’s more than that, it’s really just overkill and makes them want to leave right away.
Step 4: Start working with sponsors
When working with sponsors, you’ll want to wait until you have at least 100,000 pageviews a month. Why? Because most sponsors will want this. Many will secretly not even work with a blog who doesn’t have at least 100,000 pageviews, so best to wait.
Again, this is something that I didn’t really ever do. While I did work with sponsors on occasion and did quite well with them, it just never really fit my personal brand, so it’s been something I’ve stayed away from. When I hit 2 years blogging, I stopped altogether. For me, it wasn’t worth the time invested and they kept asking for illegal things like putting a do-follow link in a sponsored post (which is a no-no with Google).
Working with sponsors is something every blog will need to decide for themselves and there’s no right or wrong in your decision.
If you do want to work with sponsors, a few of my favorite companies I worked with are:
Izea – I never got too far in with Izea. I’ve done a couple posts and it’s pretty standard stuff. A few of my friends make killer money with them. Definitely worth your time.
Pollinate – this is another great company. Every time that I’ve worked with them, I’ve had pleasant experiences and unlike Izea, the rules and guidelines are a bit more relaxed, so it’s easier to complete the task.
Tap Influence – this is a great sponsored post company to sign up with. They have a lot of great opportunities.
Clever Girls Collective – I enjoy working with this company above all other sponsored posts companies because they really make things very simple. There’s not a ton of hoops to jump through. Everything is pretty straightforward and they often have great Facebook posts that I enjoyed doing as the projects were always FUN, so it’s didn’t feel like “work.”
When you’re at 100,000 consistent pageviews a month, you can also…
Step 5: Start affiliate marketing
This is one of my favorite ways to earn income. In fact, last year, I earned $89,885.41, in affiliate income alone!
I just love me some affiliate income!
Here are the exact totals I made last year and with links to the corresponding companies, so you can apply as well if it fits your brand.
Amazon – $6,047.07
BlueHost – $63,900.00
Share A Sale – $6,337.59
Ebates – $5,967.10
OfferJuice (barely started with them in November) – $357.05
ShopHer – $1,292.23
Misc. affiliate income – $5,984.37
When you’re first starting affiliate marketing, you’ll want to recommend as many companies as you can. This will help you determine what your audience wants and finds most helpful.
After a while, you’ll start to see trends and you should begin paring down with the companies you recommend. Just recommend the top 5 companies that make you the most money (thus what your audience deems the most helpful to them) and focus on that. There are stages of making good money in affiliate marketing and the future is very bright if you really invest in learning about this topic.
Step 6: Create your own products
You should NOT waste your time creating your own products until you’ve been blogging at LEAST one full year and have at LEAST 200,000 consistent pageviews a month. You really need to establish your brand’s authority and this takes a lot of time.
When I first started blogging, I spent months developing an audio ecourse. I figured everyone would want to buy it. It was awesome content. Something I had 18+ years experience in. The problem was, I didn’t have anyone to sell to. I personally sold to two people. I made less than 50 bucks. It was a total waste of time and still to this day, that course sits on my computer not being used at all.
I didn’t wait long enough to sell it and now that I have, I see my audience in a completely different direction and it’s pointless to try to sell it now. I wasted all that time, energy, effort, and money for 50 bucks.
Whatever product you want to create, wait until you have a great, solid foundation in which to sell from! Otherwise, again, people will only see you as out for the money.
What I didn’t mention
Did you notice that I did NOT mention your newsletter subscribe list at all in this post? This is because I personally feel that your newsletter subscribe list is NOT about selling to them!!!
Your newsletter subscribe list is about a way to generate a deep connection with your audience. It’s about sharing your heart more than you can on your blog. It’s about being there for them, nurturing your most dedicated readers. It’s not about pitches or selling or funnels, although you can and should make money from the list, that’s not the goal of having a list.
I have an extremely massive-sized newsletter list, despite the fact that I consistently and routinely delete subscribers that don’t open the emails within 6 months. I’m always weeding and pruning it, yet still, I gain over 10,000 new newsletter subscribers PER MONTH (thanks to ConvertKit). And what comes into my newsletter subscription, likes to stay and I love that. I give lots of valuable content and freebies and really take the time to respond to their emails and nurture them like family. It is NOT about selling. If you have that in your mind, take it completely out as soon as you possibly can.
