Blogging is a big game changer when it comes to earn an income. It isn’t easy, but just before Christmas I was able to earned my first £100 from blogging.
I was thrilled when the statement came through my email, I felt like I won the lottery and I was on my way to global richness where I’d be dining in Beverley Hills and having coffee with all the Hollywood stars. Ok so that last part was an exaggeration but It was genuinely a great moment when the statement came through telling me that I have reached my payment threshold. All I had to do is sit back and wait for the money to be transfer to my account. Ka-ching!
In all seriousness, considering I have been blogging for a long time, this is the first time I was able to make some money from it. Ok sure in the past I got £20 here and £20 there from various sponsor post. But it was never steady and it was never enough to pay some bills or go out to eat.
Last year I sat down and decided to make blogging my job, it always been my hobby but never my job. It was something I would do if I have a free afternoon or if I’m bored. But last year was a game changer. I came to the general realization that I need another source of income as well my Digital Marketing job. I also came to the realization that I can’t always relies on clients with my overall income. As a moment notice they can drop me and stop working with me. Then where will I be? I also found getting new clients to be a lot harder – one that is willing to stick around and agree to my budget. Some has said it due ‘Brexit’ and more businesses are holding onto their money. Whatever the economy situation, I still have to make money. I have a mortgage and bills to pay. So that was why I turned to blogging as my job.
I have to say, it’s the best job in the entire world. I have so much freedom to write whatever I want and the best part is – I can just be myself. I have no bitchy manager breathing down my neck and I can work in the comfort of my home.
Despite a lot of family members not understanding what exactly I do. They all said I’m a lot happier and are supportive of my ambition.
As I was saying, from last year I decided to stop treating it as hobby, but as a job and I was determined to make some money. At first the money was slow and low, it wasn’t much and I thought I would never reach the payment threshold.
I worked hard on building my traffic and last year I reported that I reached 16,000 pageviews. Wayhay that to me was amazing! The pageviews has been steady but I learnt a valuable lesson when it comes to making money through blogging.
More traffic = more money!
From building on traffic, the money suddenly came through. I was reaching my monthly payment threshold. Getting my first payment was amazing! It wasn’t much but I know I could build on this and work harder on getting more every month.
Because I was serious about making money, I sat down a read everything I could get my hands on. I read books on blogging incomes, I read blog posts, and I also watched videos.
It paid off as just before Christmas I earned my first £100 from blogging. Here a guide on how I did it.
(Disclosure: There are a affiliate links here, but these items is something I highly recommend. I would never put anything on this page that I personally wouldn’t recommend.)
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.
Late last year I started to really get my head round Affiliate marketing. I never been clear about it and from all the advice I read – affiliate marketing is the way to go if you want to make money through blogging. It has a bad rep, there’s report that it all scam and bloggers are deceiving people. From what I read and seen, it isn’t a scam and I have no intention to ever deceive people. If something does look like a scam, then I just wouldn’t do it.
What turned it around for me with Affiliate marketing was signing up to Michelle Schroeder ‘Making sense of Affiliate marketing’ course.
The concept it really simple. She a blogger who is earning a 50k income from Affiliate marketing. So she set up a really easy simply course on how you can achieve that kind of income. Don’t get me wrong I would love to earn 50k but I don’t see myself achieving that quite yet. But I do want to make money.
Michelle’s talk you through everything there is to do with Affiliate marketing, the pros and cons. You get to join her Facebook group which is a great support team if you’re ever stuck. How to maximum your Pinterest account and etc.
I signed up thinking I would never make any money. And yet I did! When I saw the pending payment bar on my Affiliate marketing account (I will be talking about that in a second) I jumped up and down and let out a cheer. What happen was I followed Michelle’s course to the letter.
My advice is, if you want to make money from blogging, then sign up to Michelle ‘Making Sense of Affiliate marketing’ course. Trust me you won’t regret it. This is the way to go.
Google Adsense.
You may have notice those little advert banner I have on here. I have tried to make then less annoying and something that isn’t in your face when you first click on here. That at first was a slow burner and I genuinely thought I would never reach my payment threshold.
But as I said earlier – more traffic = more money. That was a game changer last year when it comes to Google Adsense. If you are starting out with these ads. Do remember that it won’t happen overnight if you don’t have the traffic. Be patient and read everything you can get your hand on.
Apart from Michelle course. I also signed up to Affiliate window. If you are serious about Affiliate and live in the UK – I 100% recommend this.
This is a little (I say little – it bloody massive) umbrella network on Affiliate marketing. This where you can find certain Affiliates brands, set up payment, find brand adverts, and also find sponsorship.
I recommend this to UK readers as it has a lot of UK high street brands. A lot of household names we’re all familiar with.
I find Affiliate Window handy as it helps me create Affiliate links easily and you can easily contact the brand directly.
If you do decide to sign up. You might want to read this first.
As part of the application process, Affiliate Window will place a £5 charge to your credit card. Before you get all angry and annoyed: This is how they verify that you are who you say you are and they immediately credit that £5 to your account. They do not keep it. They are not charging you to join the network. £5 is no big loss and you do get it back.
However, this is another tools you need to use to make money.
Skimlinks
I’m just going to briefly talk about this. I like using this. The idea is that they would turn certain words into links. So if you have a sentence like this:
I went to EBay and brought a Playstation 4 game. It should change the word ‘EBay’ to a link that will direct you to the EBay website. Every time some click on the link – you get paid. But this will only work if you have traffic. Sometime it would change the most random words into a link, which can be useful as you can potentially make money on every single post. Pretty cool right.
That was how I was able to earned my first £100 from Blogging. One final piece of advice – don’t just blog for the sake of blogging. Blogging as a job does entail you to like writing and to be in it for the passion. If you are blogging and hoping to turn a quick buck, then you are out of luck. It will not happen overnight and it require patience. The question is, do you have what it takes to earn your first £100 from blogging?
