Hope for your financial life and beyond

How to Make a Thousand Dollars in a Month on the Side With a Blog

Enjoy this guest post today from DW, the creator of and writer at GreatPassiveIncomeIdeas.com.

coins coming out of a computerWhen I was younger I used to go online looking for things I could do that would make me rich some day. A lot of the information I would stumble upon usually involved investing, waiting years to see your returns, or taking significant risks in things like real estate or business ventures.

If you’re like me, all of those things are great and all, but not really what I was looking for. I’m a family man with responsibilities and a mortgage to pay off. I simply can’t risk putting my family’s future in jeopardy in pursuit of trying to make more money.

That’s when I discovered something: The very websites I was looking are were the thing I needed to be doing. So I started getting into blogging and found it to be one of the best semi-passive income investments you can make.

Now three years later I’ve finally figured out how to make a thousand dollars in a month on the side without hardly any major risk or expense. And I do it all at night after the kids go to bed or on the weekend’s when I have some free time.

Here’s how you can do it to.

First – Create Your Own Website

The first thing you’ll need to do is to setup and make a blog or website that people will want to go to.

For example: When I was first investigating different ways I could create residual income for myself, I used to find all kinds of websites with scattered ideas that were always very thinly backed up.

That’s actually how my site Great Passive Income Ideas got started. It began as just a bunch of ideas I was collecting and evaluating over the course of a year. Every time I found something good, I’d write it down and make some short notes next to it for following up later.

What I never imagined is that “the list” itself would end up being a thing that ended up making me money! Eventually I got the idea to publish my notes in the form of a website for the rest of the world to have. Now everyday almost 600 people per day visit the site to read my mammoth collection of ideas and see what inspires them to make money.

Next – Monetize Your Website

If you owned a store that had thousands of visitors every day, but you didn’t sell anything, how long do you think that business would last?

Running a website is much like the same thing. Building up and attracting traffic is one very big part of the game. But then there is another side to it that involves what you do with them when they actually get there.

Most of my websites are monetized using Google Adsense because it’s easy and it pays out immediately. However there are plenty of other products out there that people like you might find useful.

For example, if you run a personal finance website, why not promote software that will improve keeping track of your money. If you like to write about building websites, then why not talk about products that people can use to build better sites.

Work At It To Make It Better

Setting up a site once is never all there is to it. Lots of other well-known established bloggers will tell you that you almost have to spend just as much time promoting your content as you did creating it.

Usually that involves some pretty easy to do things like creating well-written guest posts for other blogs, participating in social media, actively engaging other bloggers, etc.

In addition you’ll always want to be evaluating how you can make your website a better informational product.

  • Is it easy for the readers to find what they’re looking for?
  • Are your ads easy to find but not intrusive?
  • Are there clear calls to action?

All of these things could be potential candidates for holding down your income if you’re not regularly working on doing something about them.

Make Your Life Easier While You’re At It

Another beautiful thing you can do – outsource the hard work. Every month I take a look at where my earnings are coming from and I take a small portion of the profits to invest in new ventures.

Usually these new ventures are something small like hiring writers to create new content or working with a freelancer to create a new logo.

When you work with other people, it takes all the burden and stress off of you to always be the one doing the heavy lifting. That way you can focus on the big picture and decide where you want to focus your time and energy.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to make a thousand dollars in a month, please follow this link to see how to start a money-making blog. You’ll find a very resource post that is over +7,500 words of valuable information covering everything from first coming up with the theme of your website to working with advertisers to make an income from it.

Editor’s Questions: Is a purpose of your blog to make money? What has proven to be your best strategy for making money on a blog? What other income generating ideas are you doing on the side apart from your full-time job?

DW is the creator and writer of GreatPassiveIncomeIdeas.com, a website completely devoted to ideas for making money on the side. When he’s not blogging or spending time with the family, you can usually find him with a guitar in hand.

Images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Next Post: The Delicate Balance of Self-Promotion For Peer Recognition

Prior Post: The Most Basic Thing I Never Understood About Leadership

I hope you enjoyed that post. Want more?
Sign up to receive my blog posts via email and get your free gift...
99 Ways to Spend Less and Save More

Privacy Guarantee: I will not share your email with anyone.

Comments

  1. This is a great list to get started on making some income off a blog.

  2. I haven’t made any money off my own personal blog yet, but I have made money because of my blog. It serves as a great portfolio of my writing and has lead to several online freelance writing jobs so far. 🙂

  3. I don’t make much money at all. Heading over to your site to find out other ways to earn money.

  4. Thanks for these good advice Brian! I’m thinking to build my blog, maybe in the future, but now I’m still a newbie to this, right now, I prefer to be a V.A. 🙂

  5. My blog has not generated that kind of income! My blog has launched my current freelance career, but I have mixed feelings about Google Adsense, so haven’t pursued it.

  6. Thank you for sharing all of this valuable information. I have to start a blog. I know that, but I never seem to get around to it, it seems an overwhelming task. One day soon, I promise.

    • Yes – if you’ve thought about it, then you should go for it! You really have nothing to lose. When you do get around to starting your blog, feel free to check out the link I gave to our giant guide. I think you’ll find a lot of good stuff there.

  7. I agree with Shannon that building the audience is important. Numbers are just numbers but if your readers aren’t engaged than numbers are just that, numbers. Some great points but time, lots of time and hard work that’s for sure.

    • There’s no question about it – your traffic is your gold. If you don’t have them, then you have nothing. But I think its also important to have some idea or direction of what you want to do with that traffic when it comes. If you’ve got a great site with 100K visitors every month and no ads or way to monetize the site, you’re leaving a big opportunity on the table.

  8. I started blogging a week ago… no, seriously! This is great information, and it’s good to know there’s a business in there somewhere, as long as I’m willing to put the time and effort in to bring it out. Thank you.

    • Welcome to the blogging world Myles! At the beginning, I’d encourage you to focus mostly on your writing skills…always putting out quality content. Monetizing a blog can evolve over time…I’m still just getting started with it after two years. If you need anything feel free to ask. If I don’t know the answer I can probably point you in the direction of someone who can.

      • I couldn’t agree with that more! One of my biggest mistakes in the beginning was focusing too hard on which ads or products to promote. I put a stop to that and focused instead on quality content and getting to know a little something about SEO. Ironically the money started to come all on its own after I started paying attention to those two things more.

  9. It can be truly a nice in addition to beneficial piece of information. My business is fulfilled you discussed this useful information about. You should keep us up to date in this way. Many thanks for expressing.

  10. The main purpose behind my blog is to make money one day. But until that happens, I’ve been lucky enough to find freelance writing gigs to keep it going.

    • Nothing wrong with freelance writing! As long as you enjoy what you’re doing.

      The only thing to watch out for is that over time you’ll want to focus your energy on activities that are scale-able. That’s what I like about passive advertising from blogging – the more blogs and the more traffic the bigger your potential to make a greater income. Freelancing is somewhat scale-able if you can use VA’s, etc, but most of the time if you do everything yourself you’ll find you’re again limited by the number of hours you have to work on a project.

  11. I make a nice side hustle from my blog and the freelance income I’ve generated thanks to the blog. I would tell people though that you DO have to work at it and it doesn’t happen overnight.

    • Absolutely true. To build something sustainable and high-quality, you have to be willing to put in the hard work so that you’ll get the kind of traffic you want and have your readers to return. That can take a lot of effort up front. But the nice thing is that once its published and you’ve done your part to promote the content, you can let Google and your readers do the rest as far as turning it into something that polarizes new readers.

  12. I definitely think it takes a lot of time and effort to cultivate the right audience and provide either the right product (whether it’s content or an actual product and/or service). The hardest part has been building an audience, which is fun, but definitely did not happen overnight with me. And I still have lots of room from growth!

  13. I need to look more into passive income because right now all my side income is…aggressive? 🙂 I’m running out of time in my day!

    • It can be a little tough to change a mindset and focus on only activities where your income would be passive and scale-able. For most of us all we’ve ever known is to simply trade our time for money, and then seek for the highest rate possible. The thing I like about blogging is that your potential for income is only limited by how many sites you own and what your traffic does when it finally gets there.

  14. The piece that’s missing here is, “it takes a time and hard work.” It’s definitely something you can do on your spare time (or while at work), but it does take time and hard work. It’s not as easy as “if you build it, they will come.”

    • So true. It’s easy to read an article and think – wham! I’m gonna get RIIIIICCHHH!!1!! Then people forget that it takes hard work, time dedication, research, networking, etc. If it was easy then everyone would be doing it. Kinda like writing an app and putting it in the iTunes Store, Play Marketplace, or Windows Store. Just cause it’s out there doesn’t mean it will sell.

      Good info.

      • I don’t disagree with that at all. In fact I’ve created several other websites that have been total flops, so I probably know better than most people that “if you build it they will come” is completely false. To really make building websites work, you have to be willing to try, try, and try again until you get it right and start making some money. Until you see the money, you’re not doing something right.

  15. A blog or website can be a great source of income, but it does take a long time to get to the point of making money and I’ve found that it’s pretty variable. I’m sure there are probably tons of ways I could make it better though, but I use the excuse of not having enough time!

    • I’m three years into this. I can totally agree – it takes time. But I do think the effort invested can pay dividends beyond what a lot of other activities potentially would.

  16. I made $23 last month from my blog. Maybe I need to “make it better”.

    • Cool…Have to start somewhere, right?

    • At least you made money! I can remember back when I first started and made about $5 per month with Adsense. Then I would really other blogs that were making +$1000 per month for Adsense and I became obsessed with trying to copy their success. It’s not easy but you have to be willing to experiment and try a few new things if you really want it to boost up.

      I just visited your site and it’s very warm and inviting. But there are quite a few things you could do to optimize it better for monetization. Feel free to send me an email to discuss it further.

  17. Haha, this reminds me of the meme:
    1. Write a blog
    2. Figure out ways to monetize
    3. ???
    4. PROFIT!

    Definitely solid advice though. I envy those who’ve accumulated enough blogging experience and know how to turnaround a solid website into a passive income generator.

    • Ha! LOL. I’ve never seen that meme, but that’s about right when it comes to most “how to make money” blog posts. Fortunately I did get into the down-and-dirty details of how to actually get there if you click on my “how to start a blog” link towards the end of the post. There is a ton of information there on promotion, SEO, content marketing, etc.

  18. You make it sound easy…way too easy…and maybe it is 🙂 . I do know it requires patience and tonnes of hardwork before a blog starts making any money. However, once you start raking it in, its one of the best income generating projects. Excellent advice.

    • I’ll never disagree with anyone about the fact that it is hard work. But once you build it and it starts to generate money, it then becomes a matter of fine-tuning your income generating machine to produce more and more. Then you can copy that formula to other blogs and other projects. Then things really start to take off!

  19. Great advice–thank you for sharing! And, I’m headed over to your site to find more passive income ideas now! I need a passive income idea for my dog to help out with… she’s not much of a contributor to the family finances at this point 🙂

    • Maybe your dog doesn’t do much to contribute to the family finances, but I’m sure she brings other kinds of joy and happiness to the house. Dogs are great!

Trackbacks

  1. […] a ditch-digger.  It’s taken me three years to figure out all the details of how to consistently make an income of over a thousand dollars every month from my blogging.  But I’ve done it and plan to keep on getting my hands dirty in the […]

  2. […] How to Make a Thousand Dollars in a Month on the Side with a Blog – Luke 1428 […]

Speak Your Mind

*