Can You Still Make Money Blogging Or Not?

Last updated on November 30th, 2021 at 10:13 am

Wonder if it’s possible to still make money with a blog? Well, I can probably create some suspense here, but yes, you can make money blogging. It is very much possible, even in 2019. That coming from someone who 3 years ago thought earning cash from a blog is a complete scam.

Here I want to talk about how I made my very first $200 as a blogger, the 3 reasons you may never earn money blogging and of course how to fix it: the seven things you need to do in order to actually get paid for blogging (not freelance writing!).

“Here it is guys, my blog is not even a month old and I already made $200 with it.”

Aren’t you just sick of reading posts like this?

I know I am. Because I think people are lying and because I created hundreds of articles and spent what felt like an eternity pinning on Pinterest before I could make any money from my blog. And those very posts made me feel like complete a loser.

The 3 Reasons You Won’t Make Money Blogging

Let me get this straight: there are many ways you can get paid for blogging. You can use affiliate marketing, you can use ads, you can do sponsored posts, sell your own products, you can even write for different sites and get them to pay you (to me that’s more of a freelancing).

The things you need to succeed and to make any amount of money with a blog are:

• geniune traffic to your blog
• the right mindset
• persistence

You need all three to make an income with a blog. When one of these is missing…well, you will not be reaching your full potential. And you might make a few bucks here and there, but not a good amount.

Reason #1: Not Getting Traffic

You need traffic to make money blogging. Why? Well, think of it this way, if you want to sell something, you will need someone else to buy it from you. You can’t sell it to yourself.

With blogging, you’re either selling your own products or helping sell other people’s products by using links and ads on your blog. Nobody directly pays you for writing your posts or keeping your blog up.

So no matter what anyone tells you, you do need blog traffic to make money as a blogger. You might not need a ton, but you need some. I’ll talk later about how you can grow your traffic quicker.

Reason #2: Not Having The Right Mindset

If you, for whatever reason, don’t believe you can make money blogging, you will not make it. Whether it’s because you think this is a scam, you don’t deserve money or that making money doing something that “easy” is wrong…

There can be many limiting beliefs stopping you from even making an effort to monetize your blog that already has an audience. That was actually my case for 2 years (talk about it next).

Reason #3: Not Being Persistent

Blogging is very rewarding. Within 6 months to a year, if you start right you can make a good income. Some bloggers even make a full-time income.

However, the 3rd reason you might not see any money coming your way from blogging is that you’re not persistent. Six months to a year might not seem too long when you look at it from the distance, but when you’re in it and need to work every day, it’s not that easy.

With being inconsistent, I don’t just mean you’re not posting 2-3 times a week. I mean: you don’t have much content on your site yet, you’re not consistently using affiliate links in your blog posts (don’t overload them though!), you’re not promoting your blog posts on Pinterest, you’re not using keywords in your blog posts…you’re just not consistent.

And when you’re not consistent, it’s very unlikely to create a profitable blog.

When you’re consistent though, it’s almost guaranteed that things will go up. I see the biggest growth in my blog during the months when I keep showing up.

How I Made My First $200 From A Blog

For me, the reason I didn’t make any money blogging for 2 years was more of a mental thing than a real struggle to figure out HOW to do it.

The thing was, I was so used to not making GOOD money for my work at my old job and to always work really, really, hard and to give a 1000% in everything I did, mostly without even asking for money.

“This is just how life works. That’s life for me. I can’t compare to these other people, I’m not them.”

So you can analyze it as low self-esteem, perfectionist, excuses, bla bla, all that crap. But I feel like I didn’t have the habit and the mindset for getting paid outside my job.

Blogging for money sounded awesome. But also kinda like a scam. A part of me (and everyone around me) didn’t believe I could actually make money, like actual money, blogging.

I started a blog anyway and decided to focus on posting content before I try to ever earn anything OR grow an audience. For the first year and a half, I didn’t have any structure. I didn’t use ANY social media, I published my blog posts and that was it.

Then at some point, I thought that people might appreciate the things I was sharing on my blog. So I joined Pinterest and other social media and started creating some structure. I made some pins, joined group boards and my traffic grew quickly.

However, it still took one more year to decide I’m ready to make money with this blog.

I read all those income reports and was just frozen (not Elsa, moi!). “That’s them, not me. It’s easy for them.”

In theory, I knew what I needed to do to get paid for blogging, but I didn’t try at all. I collected that information like a squirrel and just liked to keep that moment I make money somewhere in the future. Somewhere where I deserve to have that money. Where my work was good enough, where I was good enough.

So flash forward another year.

My traffic was small – about 30.000 sessions per month. I saw other blogger’s income reports and they said that Mediavine accepts publishers when they reach 30.000 monthly unique visitors. I applied, they accepted me and then we turned on the ads.

I didn’t check on this anytime soon and just thought I’d probably make $50 or something. Or less. To my surprise, by the end of the month I had made over $200 only from ads and it felt so so unreal. Me making money online?

Life After My First $200 Blogging

After I realized that this is REAL and you can make money blogging, even if it’s just $200 from ads, I decided I could invest in better hosting (I switched to Siteground for their free site transfer, awesome reviews & uptime) and in a scheduling tool to help me grow my traffic more.

This was a big step for me. Since then my traffic grew more, my income grew as well and I’m constantly working on growing my blog traffic, creating content and finding new ways to make more money blogging.

I’m telling you guys, if I, with all that procrastination and wrong mindset can do it – you can do it too! But you have to put in the work and stay consistent. Even if you just display ads, if you grow your traffic enough, you’ll be making money. People seriously make it seem more impossible than it is.

And to help you out a little bit, I want to mention 7 things you should be doing to make money from a blog sooner. These are the 7 things I would’ve done if I was starting a blog this year.

How To Make Money Blogging:

The 7 Things You Should Do

1.

Just start. Don’t be afraid to start, know you deserve it and it is possible to make money blogging – even for you! Work on your blog, stay consistent and have no doubt that this will work. If you’re new to blogging, I created a step by step blogging guide for beginners that outlines everything you need to focus on in the beginning. You can find that guide here.

2.

Invest a little bit to improve SEO. When it comes to spending money, I, again have issues. I only buy the things I actually need and overthink about everything.

Howeverrr. I realized after a while, when it comes to my blog, I need to spend some money. Not a lot, but you can’t build everything on a free platform if you want to also earn an income.

You need to invest in reliable hosting and WordPress theme because these two things are the foundation for your blog and you shouldn’t ignore that foundation. Especially if you want to make money faster.

Without a good hosting and a WordPress theme, you can write all the posts you want, but it will be really hard, probably impossible to show up on the first page in Google search. The reasons for this are site speed and the technical component to SEO that keywords just can’t “outplay”

What changed everything for me in 2017 was migrating my site to Siteground (you can get hosting with them 60% off here) and buying Genesis (you can get it here) for my blog.

3.

Join Pinterest ASAP. It’s the quickest way to start getting blog traffic. Google will take a little more time and effort, but growing your Pinterest traffic can help with that as well.

Pinterest needs more high-quality, new content and you can be the one creating it! Remember that people want and need to see that content, don’t hide it from them. Go to Canva and create some graphics, so that people can find you. You can use their Pinterest templates or create your own. For now, forget about other social media and focus on just one.

4.

Be consistent. As I mentioned earlier, pin and post consistently – your audience and Pinterest will like you more when you’re consistent. Create a schedule for the month and stick to it. I like to schedule my posts ahead in WordPress and I schedule the pins using Tailwind, it saves me a lot of time and guesswork. You can get a free trial for Tailwind here.

5.

Don’t obsess over followers and statistics. Blogging is a numbers game, but not really. I mentioned you need traffic, but you can make money with less traffic than me. If you’re in a niche where it’s easy to find good affiliate programs – apply and promote their products on your blog!

Don’t focus on the number of your followers. You can have 100.000 Followers and zero engagement/traffic and you can have 200 Followers and have 20.000 Page views in a month – that’s at least what happened to me using Pinterest.

6.

Create the best content. I know it’s boring, but this is key for Google search and your future audience. Focus on creating USEFUL & ACTIONABLE content, not just ANY content. It’s not how much, it’s what kind of content. This will help your blog grow the most. Here’s a post that can help with this.

7.

Make money & diversify. There are so many options to make money with a blog, it’s kinda overwhelming. The best way to monetize your blog is to do a mix of them all, you can do better than just one income stream.

For example you can:

• include affiliate links in your blog posts, wherever it makes sense, don’t overload, people will see them don’t worry. Some popular affiliate networks and programs include shareasale.com, Amazon, Awin, FlexOffers, CJ
• offer your own product for sale
• apply to Mediavine to display ads as soon as you have 30.000 monthly sessions
• do sponsored posts

It’s very much your choice how much you want to do

Alright guys, I hope this post helps you, if you do have any questions, let me know!