Most people who start a blog want to eventually make money with it. That’s why you clicked on this article, right? After months of research, experimentation, and a lot of failures – I bring you the top 7 tips on how to create a money-making blog.
Turning Your Work into a Money-Making Blog
Even if blogging is your passion, making a little money from it doesn’t sound like a bad thing, right? My dream is to make enough income from my blog to make it my full-time job. While I’m still far from that point now, I have found some amazing tips & tricks on how to start seeing income.
I’ve compiled this list of 7 of the best tactics for blogging beginners to start a money-making blog. If you follow these steps, I can pretty much guarantee you will start seeing increased traffic and income to your blog.
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1. Pinterest Traffic
Pinterest is one of the most important sources of traffic for a new or experienced blogger! Especially if you’re just starting out, this is the absolute best way to see traffic flow to your blog.
Pinterest doesn’t discriminate based on followers or how long you’ve been in the blogging game. If you put out good content, you will see people coming to your blog. It’s that simple.
In the first month of blogging, I saw my first 50 blog views from Pinterest. This was while I was not seeing pageviews from any other source. (Besides my friends and family that I was constantly bugging to check my blog!)
First things first, you need to make a Pinterest Business account. It’s completely free and pretty similar to your regular Pinterest account, but much better for analytics. With this account, you can see exactly how many people are viewing, saving, and clicking your pins.
Pinterest has a step-by-step instructional post on how exactly to set this up. You can check that out here.
The next thing you’ll want to do is to start scheduling out your pins. This can be very time consuming if you are posting enough to see real growth. Which brings me to my next point…
Tailwind
If you want to truly see growth in your audience from Pinterest, Tailwind is essential. Tailwind is the only Pinterest-approved scheduling service out there. And there’s a very good reason why!
Tailwind allows you to schedule out pins ahead of time, simply and in much less time than Pinterest’s scheduling service. It also implements a service where Tailwind chooses the best times for your pins to be posted. They choose times based on your audience, what times they’re checking Pinterest, and when you will see the most link clicks to your site.
Once I started using Tailwind, I saw a dramatic increase in Pinterest followers, link clicks, and Repins. They have a service as well called Tailwind Tribes that allows you to connect with bloggers in your niche.
I didn’t think it was that big of a deal at first. But once I started using Tribes, my shares and follows on Pinterest grew more than I had ever seen before.
This allows your pins to reach all of your tribe members’ followers (whenever they share/repin your pins). Especially for beginner bloggers who have a small following, this is a game changer!
If you want to try it out no strings attached, Tailwind is running a special where you can try out your first 100 pins free. No time limit or payment attached. It’s simply to try out the service and see if you like it!
If you try anything from this article, I would recommend Tailwind the most for beginner bloggers. Gaining a steady audience is the most important thing for you at this point. And Pinterest combined with Tailwind is the absolute best way to start seeing that traffic come in fast.
2. Google Analytics
If you want to start tracking where your audience is coming from, Google Analytics is the best way to do it. With Analytics, you can track sessions, page views, specific times your readers are viewing your site, what areas of the world they’re coming from, what sites are referring your audience to you, and much more!
Especially as a beginner, it’s the little wins that keep you going. Even if you’re not seeing much (or any) income yet, seeing people actually viewing your blog is an incredible motivator!
When I first started out, I was addicted to Google Analytics and was checking it every single day. I definitely would not recommend this for new bloggers, because that obsessive of checking was just bringing me down. I would see 10 views one day and then zero the next and feel like giving up on the blog.
Now, I’ve learned that checking Analytics about once a month is a great pace for me. It’s subjective for everyone, but seeing the numbers rise steadily from month to month makes me really happy!
Analytics is a free service and all you have to do is link it to your website. If you’re a visual learner, this video is a great tutorial on how to set it up.
3. The Best Affiliates in the Game
Guys, if you haven’t started out with affiliate programs yet, you’re seriously missing out! Affiliate links are one of the easiest ways for beginner bloggers to transition to a money-making blog. You don’t have to have a huge audience, you just have to promote products that your small audience will like/buy.
It takes a bit of practice to figure out what products those will be… But after a month or so of trying out different affiliate links, you will get it down!
ShareASale
My absolute favorite affiliate program in the game is ShareASale. They have seriously so many different brands to work with, all in one place. It doesn’t matter what your niche is, you will easily be able to find brands to partner with.
ShareASale is great because it’s easy to sign up for (even for beginners), simple to add links, and has a huge number of brands to choose from. All of the brands have various commission rates, but some can be as high as 75% per sale!
You can sign up for ShareASale for free through this link. It’s completely free and easy to sign up for. If you want to start making serious affiliate income as a beginner, this is the way to go!
FlexOffers
Another affiliate program that I love working with is FlexOffers. This program has different discounts for brands programmed into their inks. So when your readers click a link, they will get whatever discount the brand provides!
This is a great way to partner with brands you love and also offer your readers discounts. While the website is slightly more confusing (in my opinion) than ShareASale, it’s easy to use once you get used to it.
For bloggers in any niche, both FlexOffers and ShareASale are awesome resources to transition to a money-making blog!
4. Amazon Associates
I mentioned two of my favorite affiliate programs above. But if you are new to blogging and want to start somewhere, Amazon Associates is an incredible place to start!
It doesn’t pay as well as ShareASale or FlexOffers, but it does pay! And if you just started your blog and just want to see some (any) income, this is the best way to do it.
Not only is it easy to sign up for, but everyone uses Amazon! So you know you can promote products that you actually use and feel would be valuable to your readers. It’s important to promote products that you genuinely believe in.
5. Powerful Post Titles
If you want to start gaining an audience, having click-worthy titles is the first step! You can be writing amazing content, but with a *just okay* title, likely no one will read it.
Now I’m in no way saying to sacrifice the quality of your writing for click-bait titles. You have to have great content as well, to keep people coming back for more. But a great way to get readers there in the first place is with awesome titles!
If you want to write compelling headlines and generate more clicks, this headline analyzer is the bee’s knees. It helps you to include the right balance of power words, emotional words, and uncommon words. The proper balance will get people clicking every time!
If you want to learn more about including power words in your headlines and titles… This article breaks it down simply and makes it easy to incorporate them into your titles.
Your titles should match your content. So if you have great content, you should have great titles to match!
Make sure your titles are always relevant to the actual post. If they’re not relevant, you will have people leaving your site faster than the snap of your fingers.
Overall, make your titles relevant, interesting, and click-worthy. This will keep people coming to your site, to begin with, and coming back over time.
6. A Self-Hosted Website
Having your own domain name and a self-hosted website is essential for making your blog look professional. Think of it this way, which of these sites would you be more likely to click: https://blog.wordpress.vitality-vixens.com or https://vitality-vixens.com.
Of course, you would be more likely to click the second one! Investing in your blog (& in yourself) is essential for having a professional/solid foundation. You can’t start a money-making blog if you don’t invest in your blog (at least a small amount).
Most of the popular hosting websites have great starter deals for your first year. You can host with HostGator (which I use and love), Bluehost, SiteGround, etc. You have a lot of options to choose from and it all depends on what your priorities are.
Host Gator has been the best possible option for me. They have the best pricing and an incredible deal for your first year. They also have top-notch customer service and have responded to me and fixed my problems immediately when they come up.
Right now, you can get 20% off hosting with Host Gator. Just go through my link and use code: SNAPPY. 🙂
Host Gator is my absolute favorite, but if you want to do more research, I understand that completely!
This article breaks down 10 of the top hosting websites. I’d give it a read if you’re unsure of which service to start out with! You can always change hosts down the road if you end up not loving the one you choose initially.
7. Canva
I talked above about the incredible benefits of Pinterest marketing for bloggers. The best way to make gorgeous and click-worthy pins is with Canva! Canva is a service that allows you to make beautiful pins, as well as Instagram stories/posts, Facebook posts, logos, checklists, and much more.
Since I started using Canva Pro’s designs on my Pinterest pins (along with Tailwind), I saw a 79% increase in Audience, a 71% increase in Impressions, and a 49% increase in Engagements! Pinterest is great for marketing your blog on its own, but with these additions, you will see a serious increase in clicks.
Here are a few of the designs I made recently with Canva:
Canva (on its own) is a completely free service. But if you want to have more freedom on the site, make much better looking (and click-worthy) Pins/Instagram posts, you need to try Canva Pro.
You can try a completely free trial of Canva Pro for 30 days. If you don’t like it, you’re easily able to cancel and go back to the free version anytime.
Canva Pro is the best way to make beautiful pins and have your Pinterest account looking top-notch. I would highly recommend trying it out for yourself though. 🙂
Conclusion
These 7 tips are the best I’ve found to gain an audience and switch over to a serious money-making blog. They’ve worked really well for me, so I hope they work for you guys too! 🙂
Disclaimer: These are just the tips that have worked for me on my blog. I can’t guarantee that you will see an increase in income due to these tips. I can only speak from my personal experience and what has gone well for me! 🙂
Comment Below With:
1. What is your main reason for wanting to start a money-making blog?
2. Have you tried any of these tips before? If so, how did they work for you?
3. What’s your biggest blogging goal that you’d like to accomplish in the next month?
Very good tips, but it is truly hard to make money with a blog. We’ve been trying for years now, but still no luck. Gotta keep trying 🙂
It definitely is challenging and can take a lot of time and work! Just keep at it and I’m sure you will get there 🤗