Top 5 Tips for New Bloggers
I’m writing this post on my front porch while my son naps upstairs. This is the first nice day of the year, and I keep thinking back to this time last year, when I was sitting on this same porch, desperately searching the internet for ways to make money from home. One year later, I can’t believe that this whole blogging thing is actually earning our family some income. Making money blogging seemed like such a far-fetched idea when I haphazardly launched Coffee and Coos 8 months ago, but here we are! It’s been such a crazy, fun, frustrating, and empowering journey so far and I’ve learned so many lessons in such a short amount of time. I want every blogger (especially those stay at home moms like me) to know that earning an income from their blog is possible, so I’m sharing my top 5 tips for new bloggers.
Top 5 Tips for New Bloggers
Chose a Niche that Converts
This is my biggest tip for new bloggers. If you want to earn an income from your blog, you have to write about a topic that people care about. Every blog post (or at least the majority of them), should help your readers solve a problem. Your blog can not be an online diary where you write about your summer vacation or how you spent the holiday weekend. Think about the content you read on the internet. When you search on Google or Pinterest, most of the time, you’re looking for an answer. The same goes for the rest of the World. People aren’t going online to read about what happened to you last Tuesday, they want to know how to make dinner in 30 minutes or less, or how to plant a vegetable garden (these are just examples, but you get the idea). If you want to make money, you need lots of traffic. If you want lots of traffic, you need to write valuable posts that answer a question or solve a problem.
Don’t let this freak you out. Just because you’re helping people solve a problem, doesn’t mean you have to be a full on expert in your topic. You don’t need fancy degrees or certifications. Do you think I’m a parenting expert? Lord, I hope not. I’m just a regular mom, who had a baby, and wrote about what worked for me and my family. Think about what you’re good at, what you enjoy, and write your blog posts as if you were simply giving some good advice to a friend.
Don’t Expect to Get Rich Quick (and Don’t Give Up)
Blogging is not going to make your rich overnight. It takes time, patience, and a whole lot of perseverance. Blogging works by the compound effect (if you haven’t read the book by Darren Hardy, I highly recommend it). Think of your blog as a snowball rolling downhill. It starts off very small and slow, but over time, it gets bigger and faster, and starts growing exponentially. The more time passes, the more your library of content grows, the more your audience grows, and the more your income grows. It’s not always a steady uphill climb. You might have months where your income drops, and you might have months where your income skyrockets. But, if you’re doing things right and staying consistent, you’ll continue to see overall growth with your blog. For a little example, this is what my income looked like for the first few months with Coffee and Coos.
- Month 1: $4.67
- Month 2: $82.92
- Month 3: $149.97
- Month 4: $332.28
- Month 5: $723.95
- Month 6: $842.21
I’m in the middle of my 9th month blogging and I’m on track to reach my goal of $2,000. It’s not a huge number, but like I said, I’m not looking to get rich quick… I’m just looking for growth.
Update: It has been two and a half years since I started blogging. My monthly income ranges between $7,000 and $10,000. I feel extremely weird putting that in writing for others to read, but seeing other income reports was one of the biggest motivating factors for me when I was getting started. So there it is.
Monetize from Day One
Another major tip for new bloggers is to monetize from day one. All of the income I shared above came from two revenue streams; ads and the Amazon affiliate program (I am an affiliate for a couple other companies, but I haven’t done a great job at incorporating them into my content. This is definitely on my list of things to improve upon over the coming months). So, for now, let’s focus on ads and Amazon, and how they can help you monetize your blog from day one.
When I first started my blog, I used Google Adsense as my ad network. The great thing about Google Adsense is it doesn’t take much to qualify. As long as you have a website and a few pieces of content, you will most likely be accepted. I’ll be honest, I didn’t make a whole lot of money with Adsense. They pay you once you reach the $100 mark and it took me almost three months to get there. Once I hit the $100 threshold, I had qualified for my current ad network, Mediavine. To qualify for Mediavine, you need to have 25,000 sessions over the last 30 days. (If this is all jibberish to you, don’t worry, I’ll give you some tips to understanding all of this blogging lingo later in this post). I can’t say enough great things about Mediavine (and no, they don’t pay me extra to toot their horn). Once I hit 25,000 pageviews, I applied to Mediavine, and they accepted my application within days. From there, they did all of the work. They place my ads for me and I don’t have to anything besides watch the money come in.
My second revenue stream is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is when a company pays you a commission when someone purchases a product you’ve recommended. To date, I’ve put most of my focus on Amazon Associates, Amazon’s affiliate marketing program. I’ve utilized Amazon Associates because it’s easy to use, it offers a multitude of products, and the brand is trusted by my readers. One of my favorite things about Amazon is that you get a commission on all products purchased by way of your referral. What this means is that if I recommend a baby bottle, and my reader clicks the link for that bottle, but ends up buying an ink cartridge for their printer, I still get the commission for the product. Like I said, Amazon sells just about everything, so the opportunity to earn an income from their affiliate program applies to a ton of bloggers.
Educate Yourself
I don’t like spending money. When I first started my blog, I couldn’t fathom dropping hundreds of dollars on courses and ebooks when I wasn’t guaranteed a return on my investment. I spent months trying to teach myself how to build an income generating blog. The tricky thing about that is, anyone that has truly good information, isn’t sharing it for free. Please don’t be like me. Educate yourself from the beginning. Don’t over complicate an already complicated business endeavor. Yup, you read that right, think of your blog as a business (because it is). Even if you spend a couple hundred dollars on education it’s still piddly compared to the startup costs of a traditional business.
If you’re new to blogging, you’ll quickly see that there are countless options when it comes to courses and ebooks on the topic of blogging. Do your research. See what other people are saying about these courses. Make sure you’re going to get your money’s worth. Since I wised up, I’ve invested in three different forms of blogging education. I purchased two books from Caroline Simmons who runs the uuber successful Swaddles n’ Bottles. She has a Pinterest ebook and an affiliate marketing ebook. I bought the Pinterest ebook first, saw amazing results, and within a week, I purchased the affiliate marketing ebook. Both books are great for beginners. They give you great information to get your blogging business up and running, but not so much information that it paralyzes you (if you’ve ever dealt with information overload, you know what I’m talking about). Last month, I decided it was time to take my blog to the next level. It was time to get serious about SEO, email marketing, and increasing my traffic. A friend recommended the Billionaire Blog Club. I did a little research, texted my husband for some reassurance about spending money (I’m really not kidding… I HATE spending money and I knew he would give the extra nudge to invest in myself), and signed up to become a member of the BBC. The Billionaire Blog Club gives its members lifetime access to challenges, courses, ebooks, and a community of helpful bloggers (with updates pertinent to the world of blogging happening constantly). I’ve been so impressed with the Billionaire Blog Club that I dedicated an entire post to it.
I don’t care if you buy one of Caroline’s ebooks or join the BBC, I just want you invest in yourself get some education. Don’t keep spinning your wheels trying to teach yourself something that others have already mastered. You’ll either get frustrated and give up, or end up purchasing something down the road and wish you’d done it sooner (I can speak from experience).
Find a Community
This is one of my favorite tips for new bloggers and one I don’t hear mentioned very often. If you’re going to get serious about blogging, I highly recommend you find yourself a community of people who understand you and what you’re doing. Remember all that blogging lingo I was throwing around earlier in this post? A great way to start understanding all this new terminology is in blogging communities. There are tons of Facebook groups that are made up of bloggers who trying to figure this whole thing out. If you join BBC, you’ll get instant access to the slack community. Whatever it is, just find a place where you can go to ask questions, share your frustrations, and celebrate your successes.
Shortly after I started blogging, I was invited to a small Facebook group of twelve other new bloggers. We’ve kept it a small group where we can ask questions, ask for favors, share screen shots, and talk about what’s working, and what’s not. Sure I have my husband and my friends, but when it comes to blogging, no one really understands the ins and outs like other bloggers.
Here are some of the Facebook groups I’m currently part of:
If you’re a new blogger or someone who is considering starting up a blog, I hope these tips will help you in your blogging journey. I also hope that this post gave you some inspiration and some faith that earning an income from a blog is possible. If you have any questions, I’d love to help! Either comment below, send me an email, or shoot me a message on Instagram!
DISCLOSURE: Coffee and Coos is not intended to replace the advice of a medical professional. Always consult your doctor for medical advice.
Some posts on this site may or may not contain affiliate links. Coffee and Coos is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. To learn more, visit our Privacy and Disclosure page.
