I just spent the last week battling the flu. I knew something was up when all I wanted to do was lay down all day on Monday. For the better part of seven days, I was practically in bed around the clock. Not. Fun. At. All……
It’s a good thing my blog earns income without me
As I could throughout the week, I checked on my business here and there. I was pleased to find that everything was humming along without me. People were visiting my blog, taking my courses, and in general operating as if I was there (even though I wasn’t).
I was so thankful that I had this business running in the background even when I couldn’t be there to check on things like I normally would.
Passive Income Earnings from My Blog
I woke up every morning to new sales notifications for my products, income from my ads from the day before, and affiliate sales for products that I recommend on the blog (like Amazon products).
The only major income stream I couldn’t tap into during my sick time was sponsored posts. Those require action on my part, so I didn’t actively pursue any new sponsored pieces and thankfully I didn’t have one lined up for this week! Otherwise, I probably would have had to ask for an extension which I don’t like to do.
Passive income is by far my favorite type of income.
I need to go back and tally up the earnings, but it was actually nearly $500 some days. One thousand is simply a nice round conservative estimate for purposes of this post. Suffice to say…
My Blog Earned Well Over $1,000 the Week I Had the Flu
The best part about this income was that I didn’t have to do anything! That’s the beauty of having passive income streams on my blog. All the products I’ve created to date and posts I have in place all worked on my behalf to earn income without any assistance from me.
It’s such a great feeling to know that you can still earn an income even when you don’t physically show up. I know just how fortunate I am to be in this position.
Passive Income Screenshot – One Week in March
Blogging is truly the best job in the world and I am so glad I started mine all those years ago! I am not gonna sit here and tell you that it’s EASY to create a profitable six figure blog, but I am fairly confident in saying that it’s quite common to create a blog that makes $1,000 to $2,000 per month on autopilot with a year or two of consistent daily effort.
All the hard work that I put in over the past 10 years online, and over the past 5 years on this blog in particular, is all worth it in hindsight. My blog can now easily earn a full-time income on its own without any further help from me except for monitoring the technical side of things (for which I have a tech person anyway). Of course, I don’t like leaving it alone and love setting new income goals for myself, but this is a really nice thing to have in case anything major happens in my life that takes me away from work.
For reference, here are the sales that came through JUST ONE of my income accounts this week while I was in bed, fighting the evil flu virus.
If I didn’t have a blog that earned passive income without any action on my part, I would have been sweating it the past week while I was sick.
This blogging thing is truly unreal!
I want to encourage you – if you’re scared to start a blog or growing weary from all the work that goes into growing one – don’t be discouraged. You WILL get this thing set up to generate passive income. With a lot of hard work and creativity, anything is possible!!
People ask me all the time what I think is the best residual income stream out there right now. Hands down, it’s selling your own products via blogging. You can create an a product once, write about it on your blog, and continue to sell it for a very long time.
In fact, this post is a perfect example of this in action. I created the products I mention throughout the post over the past two years, and I set aside some time to write this post…and from now until my blog no longer exists, this post will continue to earn revenue from product sales! It’s as simple as that. I just have to help people with this post. And I hope it is helping you!! 🙂
Most people get scared because the thought of starting a blog and making a product is super scary. I’m telling you – it’s not that scary once you get into it. Just like anything else in life. You fear the unknown because it’s not comfortable…
Now that I know what it’s feels like to create something from nothing and get paid to pursue my passions? I’m creating new products left and right! Coming up next is a line of products for the moms in my community who are simply searching for the best way to earn money from home, whether it’s blogging or not. I can’t wait to unveil this product line on my blog…stay tuned! 🙂
RELATED READING
Click Here to Get Start a Blog Bootcamp for FREE
How Long Does It Take to Make Money Blogging?
3 BURNING NEW BLOG QUESTIONS
Now, without further ado, let’s jump right into some of the most common questions I receive about starting a blog. These are my most asked questions OF ALL TIME.
#1: HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY ON A BLOG?
I get this question soooo often! It makes sense – it’s the main reason a lot of people decide to start a blog. Today I’d like to talk about what really matters when it comes to making money blogging.
While there are many revenue sources to choose from (many of them discussed in my income reports), there is only ONE way to create a blog that makes money.
And that is by providing value to your readers. This means that in order to create a blog that earns income passively, what you write about must help someone figure something out / solve a problem / fill a need.
>>HOW YOU MONETIZE THAT CONTENT IS SECONDARY TO THE VALUE YOU PROVIDE.<<
An amazing advice-filled blog can be monetized many different ways. A crappy, blog with nothing important to say will always struggle to earn money.
So first you must create content that people want to read. For instance, if you blog about family life, content you could write that will draw in readers and then make you money are as follows:
- How to grocery shop for a family of 4 on $200 a week
- The best outfits to wear on a family photo shoot
- Creative Halloween costume ideas for toddlers
- How I taught my child to use the potty in 3 days
- Lunchbox ideas your kids will actually eat (with photos)
You earn income from these kinds of topics by placing ads on your blog posts and/or recommending the products your readers will need to achieve that goal. In a nutshell, that’s what making money blogging is all about….helping your readers achieve a specific goal!
I could go on and on! Just think of your topic idea (in this case, your LIFE), and then write about things in a way that solves a specific problem/pain point for your reader.
FYI – If you’re already a blogger and want some solid ways to increase income from posts and products you already have, I highly recommend snagging a copy of Income Boost. It’s a quick read and will boil down some of my favorite income producing methods into exactly what you need to implement like right now for instant cash. You can use the coupon code “GET5” during checkout to receive $5 off the purchase price.
SPECIFIC WAYS TO MAKE MONEY IN THE BLOGGING WORLD
After you start your blog and write the content required to get people to it, then you can monetize it in a variety of ways. The most common ways are:
- Ads placed within your blog content
- Sponsored posts where companies pay you to write about their products or services
- Affiliate products where you sell something for a commission
- Products of your own (physical products or virtual products like ebooks)
There are just so many ways to make money in the blogging world, it’s unbelievable. Once you get into it, you start to see all these doors open up. While one blogger only monetizes with ads and sponsored posts, another blogger might only create ebooks and do sponsored posts. It comes down to personal preference, really.
#2: CAN YOU USE A FREE WORDPRESS THEME?
You may notice that there are free themes within WordPress when you start a blog. You already have to pay for webhosting up front….just how necessary is paying for a premium theme? Can you get by with a free one?
I get this question ALL. THE. TIME.
In my opinion, a paid theme is non-negotiable if you want to start a money making blog. If you want to blog as a hobby, then of course you don’t need it. You won’t be trying to impress anybody such as sponsors and readers, and I doubt your family and friends will care if you have a nice looking web presence. 😀
You can start a blog with a free theme technically…you do this through WordPress after you install it with one click on Bluehost. This is an important distinction…..the free themes aren’t available through Bluehost, but rather WordPress itself. So you will sign up for webhosting with Bluehost, install WordPress, then search within WordPress for free themes.
Here’s the thing, though – you’ll quickly see why I recommend a premium theme once you see the options available. They are very very plain and won’t look very nice at all no matter what you do to them.
I tried this myself and so have many people – I get emails all the time about this and what happens is most people spend hours and hours trying to make a free theme look nice and end up buying a paid theme just like I said. It’s funny actually! Cause they’re always like “I should have listened to you because I just wasted three days of my life.” LOL
Spending $50-$150 on a professional looking theme like the ones you see from StudioPress or Restored 316 is worth it when you consider all the wasted time trying to make something free work and doing it all by yourself without the help of the paid theme’s support forums. Nicer themes come with great support so you’re not alone.
#3: I JUST INSTALLED WORDPRESS….and now I’m freaking out!
Ok, so this is not a question, but it’s an email I get at least once a week. First off, if this is you, DO NOT FREAK OUT.
Blogging has a very steep learning curve, but if you jump in head first and take it one step at a time (I recommend tackling only one confusing thing per day) and do one new thing each day to work on your blog, you will eventually get to a place where none of it seems confusing! (If you try to tackle too many new things at once, you WILL get discouraged! I urge you not to do this.)
After you start a blog (don’t forget you can use my currently FREE Start a Blog Bootcamp – get the coupon code to make it free in this post), you will need to spend some time setting up your blog.
First, install a nice theme and then literally start going down the left hand side of your WordPress dashboard and fill out as many of the fields as you can (i.e. Site Tagline).
If you ever get lost, remember this – you can find a tutorial for just about ANYTHING related to your blog on YouTube. In fact, Bluehost has its own beginners video series that is amazing for helping you set up your blog in the first week. Just head to YouTube and start searching what you need to know.
Whatever you do, don’t give up. I promise you won’t spend the rest of your life setting up your blog. If I had to put a time stamp on it, I’d say you should expect to spend at least 5-10 hours on blog setup. Take your time and don’t get discouraged! Also, check out the BLOG RESOURCES at the end of this post for additional help.
As always, I’m here to answer questions (within my ability) and I can always help you find that YouTube tutorial you need. When you are REALLY ready to start taking your blog seriously, I have many resources available on my learning site, Adventures in Blogging. The Income & Traffic Bundle is a great place to start if you’re dying to learn everything you can about traffic & income.
BLOG STARTUP RESOURCES
- How to Start a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog
- How to Choose a Blog Name You Won’t Regret
- What to Do if The Blog Name You Want is Taken
- The 1st Thing You Should Do After Installing WordPress
- WhatMommyDoes Income Reports Collection
- Bluehost (webhosting) + StudioPress (blog templates)
NEW BLOG RESOURCES
- How to Successfully Organize a Blog with Multiple Topics
- Traffic Transformation: How I Grew My Blog to 400,000 Monthly Page Views
Susan Velez says
Hi Lena,
Congrats on having a blog that actually creates passive income. I’ve been following your blog since I bought your traffic eBook when I first started my blog a little over a year ago.
I’ve been working hard on growing my blog and since I’ve been putting more time into Pinterest and optimizing my pins for both Pinterest and SEO, I am finally starting to see my blog grow.
It definitely takes a lot of work at the beginning to get the ball rolling. But this month will be the best month as far as blog growth.
It’s actually nice to see all my hard work pay off. Every month I see my blog grow gives me hope that my goal of walking away from my WordPress freelancing business this Summer will come true.
Congrats on building such a successful blog. This gives me hope that I’ll be able to do the same as long as I keep doing the daily tasks that are helping me grow.
Hope you’re feeling better.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan
Lena Gott says
Thanks, Susan! I actually came across one of your posts the other day on Google so I think you’re doing an amazing job optimizing for search engines! 🙂
Sheeroh says
This is really encouraging Lena. Every time I think about blogging success, compound interest comes to mind. It initially seems like nothing is happening until all of a sudden you’re getting sponsored post opportunities and making money as an affiliate. Thanks so much for this encouragement.
Lena Gott says
I’m so glad you liked this post, Sheeroh! Yes, blogging definitely has that snowball effect. 🙂
James says
Hey Lena – nice job. Good for you for working hard and getting your passive income going.
Can I ask if you have any plans for scaling your activities? For example – how are you going to take your weekly affiliate revenue from $70 dollars to $700 dollars?
Lena Gott says
Hi James! Yes, I do but also I am happy where I’m at for now at the amount of hours I work. It’s already at about $1k passive per week (not counting other sources) which is really amazing in my book. 🙂