Like most things in my life, where I just dive in feet first, blogging was no different! It all started with me needing a creative outlet. My fiance and I just bought our first house, and I wanted to document the process of us fixing it up. I had an interior design business, but that didn’t allow me to show off my own personal style and process, so My Eclectic Grace was born.
I’m pretty introverted, but I wanted a way to express myself and have a platform that could reach people worldwide. I started my blog as just a way to do that, until a few weeks in when during some late night Pinterest sessions, I realized people were making serious money blogging.
I kind of laughed, because first of all…my family already didn’t understand what a blog was, but if I told them I had a plan to use my blog as my side hustle, and eventually replace my full time income with it…they would’ve just laughed. So I didn’t tell them, I just got right down to it and started researching the heck out of how to make money blogging.
How to begin
I already knew a broad idea of what I wanted to blog about – home decor, DIY + thriftiness, and just a little bit of lifestyle. I kept it small at first – it’s always easily to start with a small niche and broaden your scope once you see what you really like writing about – and just as importantly what your audience responds to most.
I had done a lot of research and saw other big bloggers have success. It seemed like they were reaching their high incomes goals, and they made it look effortless. We are know the easier something looks..it usually isn’t. Blogging is really hard work..harder than anyone realizes until they start. But the pay off can be extremely rewarding, and it allows you to make money off of your own creativity. Hello starving artist dreams come true! Ha!
There are bloggers raking in anywhere from an extra $100 a month to $30,000 a month. That seems crazy, but after being in the game for almost a year, I now understand how they are getting that $30,000/month income. For me, that is not my goal. I want to get just enough to cover my expenses of running the blog, and start chipping off my debt after that. It’s a full time job to make such a large amount of money, don’t let anyone fool you into believing it isn’t. But at the same time, don’t believe you can’t do it; if you want to make money, anywhere from a few extra bucks to a few extra thousand, it’s possible and I’m going to tell you how!
This post probably contains affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.
Never blogged or written professionally before? No problem.
I’ve always enjoyed writing, it’s been a strong suit of mine, but i’ve never done it professionally. And prior to this blog, i’ve never created a website or coded…or marketed myself. I learned everything from scratch. My background isn’t in marketing, advertising, communications, or anything. I am an artist. So if you’ve never done anything like this, fear not.I didn’t invest in expensive courses..I took free courses. There are millions of free resources out there for blogging successfully – just a simple Google search with yield you results that will be useful. I don’t have tons of traffic to my site – I don’t invest in ads or participate in “follow me” threads on Facebook, or sell courses or Ebooks. But I still make money from this. And you can too!
Where to start.
Best piece of advice I’ve received – “feel the fear and do it anyway.” Just jump in. Buy your domain. Write a post. Start. Starting is the largest hurdle..after that I promise it won’t seem so hard. After doing a ton of research, and talking to my fiance who is very savvy in the technology field, I felt like I had a grasp on the best way to start. I jumped in one morning over coffee and bought a year of hosting through BlueHost – the #1 recommended host by bloggers. I have a free WordPress site, got a killer free theme, and hit launch before breakfast was even over. It cost me less than 3 months membership at the gym for an entire year of my own site on Bluehost…it was a no brainer to say YES!
Before you start, you don’t need to everything be perfect. I literally started a a Pinterest account with my new blog name the morning I launched, and started an Instagram account (with 5 followers..now almost 4k after blog launch) and had 8 blog posts written. Finished is always better than perfect!
Let me make you realize something…your first pictures, first blog posts won’t be incredible or go viral (most likely). You have to test the waters, get the dust off the keyboard, put your manifestations out into the world. Blogging is one of those things where you only get better with time. The saying “practice makes perfect” is absolutely true when it comes to this.
I suggest having between 5 and 10 blog posts up on your site when you “launch it”. Why? You don’t want visitors to come to your site and have nothing to look at. When you announce your blog to your friends and family, they will be thrilled to check it out, and you’ll want some content for them to check out! I had three categories on my blog, and I split it up evenly – 3 blog posts in each category, which worked well for me!
Alright..so you bought a website and have some blog posts written..now what?
When your website goes LIVE this means everyone can see it – but no need to panic, you aren’t going to be on the top search of Google..yet! Don’t let your excitement be dulled if you don’t get a ton of views at first, it takes persistence!
It can get overwhelming…Pinterest, Affiliate Marketing, SEO, email lists, rich content…ETC. Don’t try to tackle it all at once, take it in strides. I broke it down and tried to fully understand one thing at a time, which ultimately made me better at each thing in the long run.
What you do need on your blog to go LIVE.
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