Top 5 Ways to Monetize Your Blog

Blogging is awesome in so many ways. We have a supportive creative community we interact with every day, we get to use our creativity and express ourselves with virtually no constraints. I mean, it's my blog and I can pretty much do whatever I want and I like it that way;) For my first year and a half, I just blogged for the fun of it. Then my readership starting growing and I felt the responsibility to post more often and more regularly. With that, came more expenses for supplies and a bigger time commitment from me. I LOVE blogging, but at some point hobby crosses over into more than that and a little bit of compensation can go a long way. I wasn't looking to become a millionaire, but a little something to sweeten the pot sounded pretty great.

Listen to me, you DO NOT have to be a huge blog to make money blogging! You DO NOT! You do not need 2,000 page views per day to make a few bucks and support your creative habit.

Before anything else you need to have a well laid out, clear, and direct blog that is living with a reliable web hosting service. I was super pumped to learn more about Host Gator! You can have your website hosted through them, but they offer so much more. They will help you:

migrate your webpage

offer one click WordPress installs

you can design your blog from scratch or they have services to design it for you

they even have marketing professionals to help you generate traffic

Run everything you need right through them with 24/7 live support via chat, phone, and e-mail to always have your back.

Now that your blog is running smoothly and looking great you are ready to dive right in.

Here is what you do need to be doing to start making money:

1. POST REGULARLY

At first it may be only once or twice a week. But it is a great idea to pick your days, so your readers know to come check you out on those days for fresh content. This is a reliable way to grow your readership.

2. GROW YOUR DAILY PAGE VIEWS

A company needs to know that that people are going to see their ad or sponsored post. So you need a reliable following to justify them paying you for your those things. Doing #1 is going to help with this, but there are other things you can do to move faster along. Link up posts at every linky party you can find. This was the fastest way I grew. Even now, if I spend time linking up at a few good parties I notice my page views are higher that day and the next day by up to 30%! Hopefully, some of those people are new and decide to start following me and are with me for the long haul.

Comment on other people's posts. Thoughtful quality comments always make me stop in my tracks and every single time someone asks me to check out their blog I do. I end up following new people this way all the time.

Share all of your posts on social media. People will click through when you share a great teaser and photo from your posts each time you publish. My biggest referral to my blog every single day without fail is Pinterest-USE IT!

3. MAKE IT EASY FOR PEOPLE TO FOLLOW YOU

Bloglovin is my favorite. I used to use Google Connect, but if people aren't on Blogger then they can't follow you that way:( You want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to follow you. I get a daily email from Bloglovin with the blogs I follow and then it is easy to click right through to posts I want to read.

Have all of your social media and following buttons very visible on your page. I hate having to hunt around 3/4 of the way down the sidebar to find out how to follow someone. I usually give up if it isn't right at the top.

So now you are doing all of these things and have been blogging for a few months so we know you have a reliable history. What now? I am not an expert on every possibility, but I can share with you how I turned blogging into a fully paid part time job.

TOP 5 PLACES TO FIND THE $$$

1. Google Adsense

This was the very first thing I did to monetize my blog. It is easy and you will make money on the ads you place starting day one. The more pageviews the more money you will earn. Weather small or large, this is an easy first step to make some money. You will have to set up Google Analytics, which is great. It helps you see and analyze your traffic and other companies may use these analytics to offer you sponsorship as well.

2. IZEA

This was the first outside company I started working with. You can do this even if you are just starting and teeny tiny. You will set up an account and your blogs demographics and topics will be entered into their system. Then you can create ads to place on your blog and find sponsored post opportunities. Companies contact IZEA and they place all of the opportunities in their marketplace. You browse through and see which ones are a good fit for you. You bid and if your bid is accepted, you write the post and get paid for it! YAY! They have social media and blog post opportunities. Now, when I started I was getting $5-$10 per post. Yup small potatoes, but a few of those a month was paying for my craft supplies. Now that my readership has grown and I have been blogging for 4 years, I get paid more than that and it is REALLY worthwhile! But it is baby steps and I am happy I started when I did because now I am getting all the benefits!

3. CLEVER GIRLS COLLECTIVE

This is a group with minimum traffic guidelines. You have to post a minimum of once per week and have 10,000 unique monthly impressions, which you can pull from Google Analytics "sessions." They have other requirements as well which you can read before applying. They have lots of great sponsored post opportunities every month. You look through them all and apply for ones that fit you and your blog. Clever Girls has blog post and social media sponsored opportunities.

4. POLLINATE MEDIA GROUP

I just recently started with Pollinate Media and I am loving this community! They work with lots of influencers of all sizes and have amazing partnerships with craft and DIY brands that are great fit into our niche. They don't have as many opportunities as Clever Girls, IZEA, or BlogHer, but they are quality opportunities and a GREAT and supportive community to belong to.

5. BLOGHER

You need to have a bit more traffic to be accepted with BlogHer, but it is an amazing group to be part of it. Every blog post you write will be published on their page which is great exposure. There is a publishing network and an influencer network with so many opportunities to make money with your blog. I am proud to be part of BlogHer and can not say enough about the support and exposure it has given me.

Hop over to Host Gator to check out all of their products and support. If you sign up through my page you will get 30% off all new hosting packages along with a FREE website transfer!

I hope that you have the confidence to dive in and give some of these tips a try. Please let me know if you have any questions and I will try my best to help out in any way I can!

I would love for you to follow along! Subscribe via bloglovin, e-mail or rss feed in a reader. I also post on Twitter, Hometalk, and Facebook almost every day. And did I mention my Pinterest addiction....

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.