Work from home as a full time blogger. Who knew? Blogger + full time income. Many people wouldn’t fathom that these two words would go together but I’m going to tell you and SHOW YOU that they can.  Entrepreneurship and working from home are dreams for many but few get to experience it successfully. My story?

 

 

 

Related: How to Earn $50,000 Per Month Blogging In Your Twenties

How I Quit My Full Time Job to Become An Entrepreneur

It was 4.5 years ago and I was unhappy sitting in my cubicle corporate job. I had been there for 7 years and I really was unhappy with my position.  In the beginning, I really only took the job because the company was incredible (and still is) and my issue was never with the company, it was with the job! Little advancement opportunity, little flexibility, micromanagement,rigid structure, etc.

I became kind of obsessed with leaving the job but as the full time provider for my family (my hubby is a Navy disabled vet attending school), I knew I had to have a plan and be successful for some time before I could quit.  So, this is what I did..

1.) RESEARCH: I was so desperate. I was looking in the free classifieds at envelope stuffing positions, yikes. Tip: If it’s too good to be true, it is. And, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  Luckily, I didn’t go with these scam opportunities.

2.) TESTING: I tried a bunch of different things: article writing, selling Twitter fans, selling used electronics, selling hair weaves, selling dropshipped items, etc.

3.) TARGETING: After much trial and error, I found that I was super successful with selling fashion items. I had a free store on Storenvy and I was killing it. It started with around 25 sales my first month and grew from there.

After research, testing, and targeting, I found a winner and one year into my online store, I replaced my full time day job income and QUIT!

How I Discovered Blogging

Fast forward to now, I have sold my first blog and writing two more blogs, while doing social media management and consulting on the side.

How did I get into blogging?

One day I was on Pinterest and saw a pin from super blogger Michelle Schroeder-Gardner. The pin title said she was making like $40K a month from blogging. Lightbulb.

I thought I misread the headline. I read the article and many more from her then I took to Pinterest and typed “income report” in the search and saw a bunch more bloggers killing it, making four and five figures blogging. I never knew!  I have worked with bloggers in the past, with my multiple stores but it never really dawned on me that they were making a killing!

So, with this in the back of my head, I thought about blogging, for a second. I love to write and I was already helping entrepreneurs with traffic, social media, etc. on social media, phone calls, texting, etc. and I was doing it for FREE! It hit me that I should start a work from home blog and monetize it, so I did! Here’s how…

How I Started Making Money Blogging

Money making started happening in month 2.

I began adding affiliate links and I added Google Adsense. I made under $100. Gotta start somewhere, right?

Then, around month 4, I found Michelle’s course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.  By this time, I had already had a PhD in Pinterest, lol, but I thought, what the heck, if Michelle is teaching something, I am buying.  I invested in the course and 3 weeks later made just under $1,000!

Pro Tip: Grab the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course, you won’t be sorry

Here are the best ways to make money blogging:

Affiliate Marketing

This involves mentioning products/services in your posts, newsletter, on social media, basically anywhere you can add an affiliate link and getting paid if someone purchases through your link.  There are affiliate products in nearly every niche: food, gardening, home decor, budgeting, personal finance, work from home, etc.

My best advice: If you want to earn good money early, aim for higher commissioned products.

Example: Bluehost pays $65-$90 commission per sign up. If you get one sale every other day, that’s an extra $975 (on the low end).

Make sure you review the affiliate terms. Sometimes are you will have limits on where you can advertise your links (like no social media, no paid campaigns, etc.).  It all varies on the affiliate.

Affiliate networks are companies that host several merchants’ affiliate programs.  To get with an affiliate network, just register with the site as an affiliate, then you can search their huge database of merchants to pick and choose who you would like to promote.  Once you are approved with the merchant (there are usually merchant approval requirements) then you’ll get your links and you can promote away.

Affiliate networks to get started with:

• Shareasale
• Flexoffers
• CJ
• Clickbank
• Peerfly

On this blog, in my first month of blogging, I earned over $600 in affiliate income!  You can definitely get these results or more.  Take your time going through the offers and pick the ones that would be an awesome fit for your audience.

Sponsored posts

This is where you write an article featuring a company product or service and get paid for it! Simple!  You can usually command higher rates if your stats are strong (higher page views, large social media following ,etc.).  Even if your stats aren’t there yet, a lot of networks will still accept you and getting paid $50-$200 per post entry level, isn’t bad.

Newbie-friendly networks:

• Izea
• Linqia
• Massive Sway

Other cool networks worth mentioning:

• Clever Girls Collective
• Tap Influence
• Social Fabric

I’ve done less than 5 sponsored posts in my blogging life. I’m pretty picky. I don’ want to compromise the authenticity of the blog just for money.  That’s a battle most bloggers have.

My niche is pretty specific: work from home/blogging. A lot of the sponsor work I’ve seen (and I browse occasionally, not often at all) is for lifestyle, family, parenting, food, style bloggers or related niches.

I’ve seen a handful of offers for other blog niches: tech, work from home, etc.  There is not a requirement usually, for the type of blog you have to have in order to apply for any opportunity but if my work from home blog suddenly published a post about baking and using a special baking chocolate, my audience’s eyebrows might raise.  You know what I mean?

You can do a handful of posts each month and earn $500-$1,000 extra each month. Not too shabby.

In addition to finding opportunities through networks, you will likely get reached out to from brands directly. This happened to me almost instantly when I first started blogging. I got several offers including 18 months free for a children’s iOS app, a stainless steel french press, cash, and more.

Screen these offers carefully and don’t be quick to say yes just because you are getting something for free. Value your time. You have to spend your time and effort testing out the product, possibly taking photos, writing an article, etc.  Consider this when you make your decision.

Adding a Work With Me section on your blog

You may consider adding a Work with Me section on your blog with your media kit.  Need a media kit?

Check out Hip Media Kits.

A media kit is like your calling card. It’s a snapshot of your blog details like:

• Traffic counts
• Social media outlets and stats
• Your reach
• Organizations you belong to
• Your audience demographics

And more.  You can even put together a list of your services: virtual assisting, proofreading, copywriting, social media management, etc.

Selling Products and Services

You can actually make the money here, by selling your own products and services.  It will take a bit of work but definitely worth it, in the end.  Some ideas for products and services you can add:

• Printables
• Selling mugs
• Selling t-shirts
• Virtual assisting
• Social media management
• Social media consulting
• Website consulting
• Graphic design
• Logo design
• Courses
• Ebooks
• Guides
• E-booklets

For physical products, consider selling through sites like Amazon or Ebay and connecting it to your blog for a great source of traffic direct to your store.  You can also have a Store page right on your blog, for selling products straight from the blog.

For services, some companies I love are:

• Teachable
• Sendowl

Teachable hosts courses.  They offer many affordable package including a $0/month plan.  Teachable is awesome because they collect all your payments, they can pay your affiliates, etc.

Sendowl is great for hosting ebooks and services like social media management.  You can create a product or service link very easily and they have an option for you to bring on affiliates.

Some incredible bloggers to follow who are pros at selling their own products:

Michelle from Making Sense of Cents

Melyssa from MelyssaGriffin.com

How to Maintain Your Blogging Income

The great thing about making money blogging is that it can be passive income.  So, write an amazing post one time, promote it like crazy and get paid in affiliate sales, product and service sales, and future sponsored post opportunities in the future!

To maintain and grow your income level, you always want to be working on your blog.

Success Tips

• Post new content regularly
• Be active on social media
• Continue your promotion efforts
• Collaborate and link up with other bloggers
• Shout out industry leaders and contact them to let them know so they can possibly reciprocate
• Update your older posts

Over time your audience and traffic will continue to grow (hopefully) and so will your income.  Making money blogging is for real and you can definitely join the club!

Excited to start blogging yet?

Get started! Check out my popular, most loved article How to Start a Profitable Blog in 20 Minutes to get started.

Are you a new blogger?  Comment down below to share your tips on making money from blogging.