How to Make Money Blogging (even as a newbie!) | Nina Kolari (2024)

You are here as you want to make money online with a blog and I bet you have couple of questions in your mind.

- Can a newbie make money quickly with a blog
- Can one still make money with a blog in 2021?

Answer to both questions is YES ABSOLUTELY!

This goes both blogging for yourself or a business blogging to market your services / products. There are couple of type of blogs that I don't recommend starting but more on those later.

No matter what you should treat your blog as a marketing tool. You are either marketing your own services / products or somebody else's.

Making money with a blog is not going to easy, you will need to learn few new things but I'll guarantee it will be totally worth it.

And I'll explain both in detail in this post.

So let's get start making money with a blog, shall we!

Basic Building Block - Your Blog

Ok, the first thing we need to do is to set up your WordPress blog. This is a must, you should not start a money making blog with Blogger or even WordPress.com!

Here's why you need to own your online real estate aka website/blog:

- Free sites like Blogger and all are not great for monetizing as most ad networks will not allow sites built with these services
- You'll look more professional to any visitor and this is crucial when you want to make money with your website
- Make it your own. When you host WP on your own you can literally choose a theme from thousands and thousands of options!

This means you will need a host for your blog - think of this like a block of land when building a house.

You'll be building a blog with WordPress.org (not WordPress.com). This is easy, I promise!

1. Pick the Right Block of Land -> Bluehost

Why should you go with Bluehost?

1. You get FREE domain name when you sign up
2. And it is the cheapest host available
3. Most recommended host for WordPress websites
4. Super easy to use for brand new blogger like you!

Here's what to do next:

Click HERE (or click image below) to sign up with Bluehost and enjoy the above benefits. Go ahead and do it now - link opens in another tab so its easy to come back to read further.

You'll enjoy above special deal with you use my affiliate link. Once you are on the page, click the GREEN Get Started Button and select Basic Package - or if you are in it for long run the Choice Plus might be way to go.

Follow the sign up process and fill in your details. If you don't know your domain name yet, you can do that later.

Read further => How to Come Up With Great Domain Name in under 30 Minutes

Now you are a website owner - WAY TO GO!

Once you sign up you can build your WordPress blog with couple of clicks with Bluehost. If you want to change your website look, head over to Themeforest to find the right style.

Just remember looks are not most important thing with blog!

So pick any theme(literally any!) and start the next step as soon as possible...

2. Write Content that Answers what People Are Searching For

Now that you got yourself a block of land aka website, it is time work on the house and interior.

The most important part of your blog and making money with it is content.

There are couple of rules about money making blog and content.

Monetized blogs...

1. Have content that people are looking for
2. it is not personal "what I wore today" type of blog or anything that has lot of I's in it
3. They solve a problem that the reader has

This is because WEBSITE VISITORS = $$$$

Your focus needs to be on the reader, not on you.

So you might be thinking... what do I write about then?!?!

There are couple of ways to find out what people are searching for.

Now is a good time to start a Google Sheet / Document, have a notepad handy to keep track of your findings.

First and easiest is Google. When you type on Google search bar it will give you suggestion based on what others have searched for.

Another great place to do research is Buzzsumo.com. They give you an idea of topics that are popular. It is a paid tool but also has limited free option. You do not need to pay anything at this point.

You can use Buzzsumo to check out other bloggers or look for content that has been shared the most.

What you should not blog about

Remember in the beginning when I said that there are couple of topics you should not start a money making blog about and here's the answer.

When you want to make money with a blog your focus needs to be on the reader rather than yourself. If you blog about your family dinners, outfits, travel adventures, that is all great but what's in it for the reader? Another thing is that there is huge competition in these niches and these are hard to monetize.

We all want to talk about our passions and sometimes following that is best thing to do. Many times it might not be!

I never thought I would become a blogger, that was not my passion, far from it. I'm not native English speaker and not the best writer so I though this is the last thing I'd do online.

But hey, here I am! 🙂

And way happy that I am! I've made great passive income from my blogs and also use blog to get clients!

Blogging for service based businesses is fantastic lead generation tool - and all evergreen too!

Anyways now we have your land, interior and now it's time to let the neighbors know you've moved in.

3. You need Traffic and I have the best solution for your

I saved the best for last.

Imagine a free traffic generator that is both bit like Google and Social media channel.

Let me introduce Pinterest! My best friend and ever never failing traffic generator.

If you want to monetize your blog, you will need traffic and Pinterest is by far the easiest and fastest way to get traffic even as a new blogger.

Yes I am biased as I am a founder and CEO of Profitablepin.com - Pinterest Marketing Agency - but I am that only because of all the results I've got and then started helping others.

And before you say: Pinterest is just makeup and recipes, right?

No it is so much more.

Pinterest is place where people go to improve themselves. Remember when I said that you need to write blog posts that answer what people are searching for.

Yep, Pinterest is THE TRAFFIC TOOL for a blog you want to make money with.

But how do you get started with Pinterest - let's go over it now.

Here's how you can use Pinterest to drive traffic to a brand new blog.

1. Start a Pinterest Profile

First step is to sign up as a Business os when you land on Pinterest sign up page, don't start filling out info - click at the bottom of the screen to "Create a business account".

If you have Pinterest personal account, you can use that after you convert it into Business account (Check settings), but you might need to clean the profile from non relevant personal boards and pins.

Once you've logged in, go to Settings to fill out your profile details. I highly recommend using your own image on the profile, rather than blog logo.

2. Create relevant boards

Create one board for your blog posts and then other relevant board around your blog topic. If you blog about personal finance, you could create boards on budgeting, saving tips, money making and more.

Fill out board descriptions and add relevant pins to the board. As you don't have that much content yet, it is totally ok - and actually recommended - to add other peoples pins to your boards.

Create at least 10 relevant boards to make your profile look like a real one.

3. Get creative with pins

Now it is time to pin your blog posts to Pinterest and this requires you to create pins.

This is super important step in the process! But also fun one 🙂

A pin that get clicks have following:

• correct size of 2 by 3 horizontal image, for example 600 x 900 pixels
• appealing image / graphics
• readable fonts
• Text that captures browsers attention

You might not get it right in the first go and that is ok. You can create multiple pin variations and test which one people respond to. I do this still all the time!

You can easily create click worthy images with Easil.

4. Get social with Pinterest

Now it is time to get the social part of Pinterest working for you, and this means Group Boards.

Group boards are boards where multiple people pin their content. When you join a group board you'll get advantage of other peoples followers!

There are few ways to find group boards:

1. Pingroupie.com - search engine for group boards but does not always give best results
2. Check out other peoples profiles to find group boards
3. Use Facebook groups like this one

Once you've found group board you want to join in, read the description to find instruction to join. Most likely this means sending a message to the board owner. Apply to multiple as it might take time before you are accepted.

So group boards have "Request to Join" button which makes applying super easy and quick!

5. Maximize your visibility with Tailwind

You can get results with Pinterest without Tailwind but it will be slower than with Tailwind! Manual pinning is good but Tailwind is great 🙂

You can trial Tailwind on me and get 100 pins for free by clicking this link. Plus you can start using Tribes as a free member which are super great for visibility too!

What is Tailwind really

It is a scheduling and pinning tool for Pinterest (and Instagram too). It is super easy to learn and amazingly effective!

You can get Tailwind to pin new blog posts, and repin old ones, to your own boards and group boards.

If you are serious about making money with your blog, I highly recommend automating your pinning. It saves you so much time and investment is just $10 a month - that's just couple of lattes!

Take Pinterest to the next level

As soon as you dig into Pinterest, you'll get hooked and just want to learn more!

You can find many blog posts about Pinterest on my blog as well as Profitablepin.com

You can find very affordable courses on Udemy.

4. Affiliate marketing

As you want to make money from your efforts, the easiest way is to be an affiliate marketing.

You promote somebody else's product in your blog and when someone clicks your link and makes a purchase, you earn commission.

You probably read disclosure at the top of the post? That's because links on this post are affiliate links and if you decide to purchase any of the mentioned services / products, I make money.

I have multiple blog posts that are specifically written to make money!

Here's a post I wrote about How I make $$$ every month with affiliate links

Affiliate marketing is great way to make money as it is passive / evergreen type of income. When you write your post once, then automated traffic with Tailwind, you'll earn commission day in day out.

Yes, you'd be making money when you sleep and wake up to "kaching"commission notifications on your mobile!

One important thing about affiliate marketing is that you should only promote products that you've used and believe in! Never pitch something you can't be behind 100%.

You might want to check this too (opens in new tab) : What is Affiliate Marketing

5. Invest into Learning

One of the best things about online business is that there is always something to learn. It is never boring!

Once you've got started with the basics I bet you want to learn more about growing and scaling your blog.

I highly recommend investing into learning more as the more you know, the more money you make. Over the years I've spent thousands into various courses to improve my skills.

Here are couple of courses that I recommend:

• Improve your writing skills and convert more readers
• Udemy - low cost course marketplace

Over the years I've bought courses to learn SEO (aka how to get to 1st page on Google), sales funnels, email marketing, webinars and much more. You do not need to learn any of those when you start your blog - but later you might want to.

Great thing about having a blog is that you a business. This means also business expenses so do keep all your receipts when you purchase something for the blog, for example invoice from Bluehost or courses you take.

You can see tools I use to run my location independent business here.

Now leave a comment below and tell me: what is holding you back from starting a blog?

Look forward hearing how I can help you move forward!