What I Learned in My First Year Blogging
And, How I Made $20,000
Year one of blogging started from a Pinterest pin I stumbled upon. The creator was earning $60,000+ per month from her blog.
I subscribed to her email newsletter and voraciously started consuming all the content she produced about blogging. I wanted to know it all.
This is the first thing she taught me…
My Start
I read a ton of articles on how to start a blog. You need hosting and a domain, then you add a theme and content and you’re set!
It was easy.
With my blog developed I began adding content in the form of blog posts. I published dozens of posts in the first year.
Monetization
I learned how to monetize by adding affiliate links to the articles. I also worked with a few sponsors who paid me to write blog posts about them and feature them on my social media.
I made some products and created two courses on Udemy tied in with my blog.
It was becoming a full business.
Month 1 earned me a little bit (under $20 I think).
Month 2 made me $80.
Month 3 earned me $800.
Following this, I began earning $1,100 to $1,400 per month from my tiny blog.
It grew to 40,000 monthly page views and I was adding more and more content, I started creating other blogs.
How I made $20,000 my first year blogging
From the various income streams I developed and through the sale of the blog, I was able to make $20,000 in my first year as a new blogger.
It sounds like a lot and I’m very proud of my achievement but honestly, some bloggers make more than that. If I could rewind time, there are some things I would change.
Here are some valuable lessons I learned in my first year blogging:
- Do not ignore SEO
- Guest post almost as much as you write for your blog
- Treat blogging like a business
- Invest in your blog (your business) and invest in yourself
SEO is critical
SEO or search engine optimization is what gets your content found on search engines like Google.
When people are searching for keywords on Google, if your content and blog are SEO-optimized well then it might appear on the first page of the Google search results.
This is what you want since landing on the first page will help you drive traffic to your site, grow your audience, and help make you more money.
That’s why focusing on SEO is so important, even from day one.
That’s a big mistake I made. I didn’t pay any attention to SEO. My focus for traffic was social-media-based which worked but if I had SEO (the more stable traffic driver) and social media, it would have made my site even more successful I think.
Guest posting
When you guest post, you’re essentially writing a blog post for someone else for free.
Well, not entirely free.
The hope is that you get a backlink pointing back to your site in exchange for the guest post.
So when people land on that website and read your guest post, they have the opportunity to learn more about you from that backlink in the guest post article.
Guest posts lead to backlinks and backlinks are very good for SEO.
I once read an article online ( I wish I could find it) where a company used guest posting as a strategy to drive up its traffic and SEO. They published a ton of guest posts and reached over 100,000 page views within the first month I think.
Insane.
Guest posting is very powerful and you should dedicate the time that it deserves to it.
Blogging is a business
Well, it is.
Like any money-making hobby or side hustle, if you treat it like your job or as a business, you’ll get much better results.
Be serious about blogging.
Track your expenses and income, be consistent, collaborate with others, educate yourself, etc.
Invest in your blog and invest in yourself
There’s only so much you can learn from an online Google search.
Don’t be afraid to invest in a paid course or two (or many). Save time, learn from an expert and expand your education.
I’ve invested in dozens of courses since I started blogging, on a variety of topics like sales funnels, SEO, traffic generation, social media, content development, and more.
Final word
My first year of blogging was very fruitful in more ways than one. If you start a blog, I think you’ll find it incredibly rewarding and lucrative.
Would you start a blog?
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