Getting Started with Blogging as a Source of Income

Earning money from home is my number one priority since I'll be laid off from my job outside of the home by the end of the year. My first step in getting started with using my blog as a source of income is to continue to learn as a blogger. While I'm not new to using my blog to create income, there is always something to learn. Knowledge is limitless!

Choose Your Blogging Platform:

 If you're new to blogging, you'll want to choose a blogging platform for your niche. If you're on a tight budget like I am, both WordPress and Blogger are free. I have tried them both and in my opinion, blogger is still the best.

Blogger's platform is simple to work with and you don't need HTML or any high tech fancy knowledge to get started. Blogger's even has a guide on setting up your own blog.

If you're setting up a new blog, keep in mind, you'll need a lot of patience. You want a catchy blog title and you will need to grow your blog with at least 20 or more blog posts before you will see any real progress with your blog. You will also want to gain the right audience for your niche before you can expect your blog to become profitable.

For some, a month of blogging or at least 20 posts with the right audience may result in a small profit as long as you are willing to put in a lot of hard work. For others, it can take several months before seeing a profit, especially if you don't have a lot of time to invest in your blog.

For me, it took several months before I saw a small profit, because I worked outside of the home full-time.

Your Blog Posts:

Most newbies think that writing about their day (I was one of these people) will make a great post. Unless you're a celebrity, no one wants to read about how your day went. 

What your readers want is a post, a niche that solves a problem for them or is useful in some way, but profitable for you. If it doesn't do that for your readers, chances are you will lose your audience and your blog will be a huge flop. 

Your niche should be one that you have knowledge in.  For example, my niche is creating  income online while living in a small town with an Autistic child. Two other niches I have knowledge in are creating recycled crafts and publishing books.

 If you're not sure if your niche will be profitable, you can do a Google search for your topic. Are there a lot of websites devoted to that niche in the search results? If not, you may want to consider another niche.

Some hot niches that are turning a profit:

• Making Money Online 
• Relationships
• DIYers
• Recycled Crafts
• Flea Market Flipping
• Health and Fitness

Growing Your Blog:

 If you plan on making only enough money to quit your job like I am, you probably won't need a domain name. However, if your goal is to make as much money as you can, you will want to invest in a web domain name for your blog, which can cost as less than $5 a month. If not, you can lose all of your hard work and believe me, it has happened. So please don't risk it.

If you're one step ahead of me and you want to learn more about how to make bigger money with your blog, I would suggest investing in a blogging program like The Money Mom Masterclass. I'm not there yet because I'm still working part-time  away from the home and my day is booked, but these guys have  a lot of good information and many moms are making thousands of dollars a month with the program.

My goal is to start with affiliate links as a source of income. I'm currently focused on Clinkbank for affiliate links, but there are other programs out there that are just as profitable. But before we get that far ahead, you want to make sure you have valuable posts and enough of them before you begin adding affiliate links or other sources of income for your blog.






 Joy Smith also known as The Insane Writer, is the author of the Sci-Fi novel, The Generation. She can be found on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn.

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Not Enough Income, Thieves Stole Our Lights and Terminal Cancer

These last three weeks have been nothing but hell for the most part for our family. It started off with my husband's job. He works at a place where he's employed 40 hours a week, but they've been VTOing due to lack of work, a lot lately. This means every hour he's not there, he's not paid. And unfortunately, it's the only work that's available in this area at the moment. So because of the work situation, it's causing bills to fall behind and a strict budget to where it's not enough for us to live on or keep our home at the moment. Yet because my husband has the job, the government considers it full-time work so we do not qualify for things like foodstamps.

In addition to the lack of income, yesterday in broad daylight, someone stole our walkway lights that upped the value of our home. Something we desperately needed. Homeowner's insurance will not cover them due to the high deductible and we cannot afford to replace them. So that was another blow to a very bad 3 weeks.

Then, we also learned yesterday that it's possible my mother may have terminal cancer. I won't know the results until Thursday, but we do know she has breast cancer in both breasts. However, the doctors are fairly certain that the cancer has spread to her liver and it would be in the last stages, making it terminal.

Everything has been like a slap in the face for me around here. I wonder what's next. Here's a photo of my once beautiful walkway that is now bare and an ill reminder that even small towns are desperate enough to steal you blind. So very sad. :( 









Joy Smith also known as The Insane Writer, is the author of the Sci-Fi novel, The Generation. You can email her at silent_beautie@yahoo.com She can also be found on Twitter @theinsanewriter.



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Know Your Readers

One of my old bosses is building his business online. Some of the ways he brings in an income is by way of affiliate programs. I know several other online entrepreneurs like John chow who are also making a little extra money this way. But I also know that most of these guys and gals trust in programs that they use personally or have a similar interest in.

For example, if you're a writer like I am, you might not want to consider using a weight loss affiliate to create a little extra money, since your readers are visiting your website or blog for writing or stories. However, if you have a fitness blog, this type of program would be perfect for it since many of your readers would be interested in weight loss and fitness.

Knowing who your readers are and sticking with affiliates that are similar to your website or blog's subject, gives you a better chance of becoming a successful online entrepreneur like my old boss and John Chow.

Financial Update March 2009

If you haven't already noticed I didn't post my financial update for the month of March. The reason I haven't is because there wasn't much to report new and until jobs are lined out again, I can't consider it extra income. At the moment it is our only source of income. So there's really no point in sharing what I've been earning. It's a whole lot less than what my husband made at Cessna, that much I can tell you.lol

But, for now it's all we have, so it will have to do until Unemployment gets straightened out and jobs are found. I hope to continue my updates in the near future.

February's Online Income Update

I missed an entire month for income update, so I thought I would just post it in it's entirety. The month wasn't too bad to say the least, but I haven't been able to make any extra payments due to need to save money for the lay off and my visit to the hospital. Hopefully this will all change, but who knows!

February 2009 Online Income

Payperpost $4.50
Slicethepie $0.21
Private Sales $335.00
Amazon Mechanical Turk $1.20
Youdata $0.89
Private Donation $50.00
Payu2blog $20.00
Mysurvey $10.00
Clear voice surveys $0.25
Your2cents $2.00

Total: $419.95

Mid January Financial Update

Here is my update for mid-January. It was a decent few weeks despite the fact that much of our paychecks went towards car insurance, tags, taxes and titles. Things will become even tighter soon due to my husband's recent notification of a lay-off. I'm still not sure what his plans are, but I'll post about them as soon as I know more. Right now I believe he is hoping that this lay off is all one big joke. He's not one to accept the worse. Here are my online earnings as promised.

January 15th - 31st

Payperpost $4.50
Youdata $1.55
Payu2blog $38.00
Private sales $320.00
Slicethepie $0.50

Total: $364.55

Financial Update for November

As I said mentioned earlier, I am a little behind on blogging updates, work, etc. Here is my update for the first two weeks of November's financial update and goal. I have not paid any more towards debt in these two weeks, but I plan on reducing the balance on the debt next month. The reason for this is because we have five kids we want to buy Christmas gifts for. However, I did put a little money into savings for a car.

Also, I am trying to add to my freelance projects and other online financial opportunities. I am a follower of blogger John Chow. One of his famous quotes talks about not putting all of your eggs into one basket.

However, John Chow isn't the only one who has talked about this. I was reading money magazine today and an article in the magazine suggested the same idea. I think it's a wise decision, more so because of the economic crisis that we are in. Here is my update:

November 1st thru 14th

Payu2blog: $10.00
Payperpost: $17.05
Adbrite: $0.27,
Private Sales: $150.00
Kontera: $0.00

Total: $177.32

As you can see my total dropped by over $100 compared to the last two weeks of October!!! I am hoping to raise this up again!

Financial Update for Mid-October

Lately things have been very busy for me here. When I am not working online, I am working on the kitchen or I'm taking a break due to my health. Last week I took about 3 days off because I really needed it. I didn't work, I didn't even remodel the kitchen. That is partially the reason why I haven't blogged as much as I should be.

But now I'm back and there are a lot of goals and deadlines that I need and want to meet.

The first thing I need to do is give an update on my financial goals for mid-October. Last month I was able to increase a payment towards old debt. I brought down one of the credit cards to a balance of $900.00!

October 15th-31st

Payu2blog: $20.00
Socialspark: $27.08
Payperpost: $31.00
Private Sales: $240.00
Kontera: $0.22
Adbrite: $0.64

Total: $318.94

September Financial Update

Things are getting better since I've been pulling in a little more money. Even with the loss of a certain company's sales, things are going good. I have added a new company this week called Adbrite. I've already made some sales with them which is awesome since I just started with them this month.

Here are totals for my last two weeks' of September:


September 14-30

Payu2blog $25.00
MySurvey $10.00,
Cashcrate $1.00
payperpost $52.00
SocialSpark $21.45,
Private Sales $180.00
Kontera $0.05
AdBrite $1.03

This brings the total for the two weeks to $290.53. Now while that might not be a tremendous amount of money for some people, it's really decent for me and almost as much as I made when I work at microtel here in Independence, Kansas. Plus, if the next two weeks goes really well, it will be a little bit over what I need for bills, which means I can put more towards one of the credit cards that I am aiming to pay off.

There are only two credit cards that I need to pay off and their now both under $900! The card that I used for emergencies only is no longer being used, due to the interest rates being taken out two times a month. Was this a mistake on their part? As it turns out, no. So the card is not worth keeping in my opinion. If we ever decide to get another credit card for emergencies, I'll take closer look at the fine print the next time.

Speaking of credit cards, my husband was offered one at the bank where our mortgage is. He was pre-approved for $1500.00 and the interest rate was 5.9%. That's really low and something sounded a little fishy to me, so at the time I convinced my husband that he should hold off on applying for it.

Plus, I have this fear that if he does get the card, he'll be spending the money on non-emergencies and we'll be right back to where we started. With the economy as it is, we certainly don't need any more financial debt!

BTW, if you haven't already, be sure to check out Work at Home Mom Revolution's post on: Recession-Proof Strategies for Work at Home Moms and Dads. It's scary to think just how bad this economy has gotten and that we're having to do a bail out. And what if that bail out falls through? What then?

August Financial Goals

Instead of updating once a week on my financial goals, for now I have decided to update once a month. If I have more time I might try to update twice a month, but I'm way behind on work due to this bug that I cannot seem to shake, so I need to spend time trying to get well and also concentrate on getting my income back up.

I do have the rest of August's financial goal, so I will share it with you. I want to thank those who have been visiting google ads and kontera ads. They not only help the companies who use my page, they help me in increasing my income as well. So, thank you!

Google Adsense: $0.29
Kontera Ads: $0.00
Private Sales: $56.00
PepperJam: $10.00
Payu2blog: $5.00
SocialSpark: $11.00

So for the rest of August, my profit was a total of $82.29. This is only a quarter of what I should be making a month in order to pay bills. Looks like I'm going to be looking for extra freelancing work this month if I want to catch back up and then some!

PepperJam and Inc 500

Even though I haven't made anything with pepperjam ads at the moment, it looks like they're doing something right because they are moving up in the world. Pepperjam has just been rushed into the top 100 companies in the United States, thanks to Inc. Magazine.

It's number 70 rank is actually from 500 of the companies Inc. magazine has listed. Pretty cool. So I had to actually wonder why PepperJam is in the top 100. As it turns out, PepperJam is being recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in the United States.

I must admit even though I have yet to make any sort of a profit with them, I do like the fact that you're able to choose your own selection of ads that will suit your blog or website's needs. You're also able to select different sized ads, so you're not left with a huge graphics slow down on your page. The ads aren't companies that have never been heard of either. They're companies like The WB, Cartoon Network, Baby Phat and more.

So the real question is, is PepperJam worth it? Do they have what it takes to keep an interest as an affiliate market? For now it seems so.

Budgeting For My Project, "Just Believe."

One of the big projects I am working on is a project called, "Just Believe." I am really excited about the project since it will involve helping those with low self-eteem and victims of domestic abuse.

Right now I only have the bare basics to the project, but once things go into full swing, I will need a budget software to keep track of my project's expenses and earnings.

I have a personal budgeting software, but I've already discovered that it won't be useful for business budgeting. I was really hoping it would, but that's life and It just means I'll have to find another form of budgeting software that is reasonable for my project as well as my pocketbook.

For those who have their own business, what do you think? Any ideas or suggestions?

Whimsical Hammock Chairs and Extra Income

Eventually if we ever have extra income to fix up this house, I'd like to get some backyard stuff for the summer. Maybe a hammock chair to sit in and enjoy while the kids play out in the sandbox and pool. Now those whimsical chairs you see with Gardenfun.com are cute as heck, but a bit girlish for any guy or couple. I think they would be awesome for a little girl's playhouse or anyone who likes the fairy flowers theme stuff. What do you think?

Saving Money My Way

Lately with prices rising in both food and gas, many families are beginning to struggle. Most households are only earning at a minimum wage and that is not nearly enough for today's rising prices.

Yet, it's not just low income families who are suffering. Middle class families are being effected by the price rises as well.

I know here we are paying $3.55 a gallon for gas! Since my husband drives an old pickup truck, we tend to spend around $60 a week or more for gas. One way we help to make our dollar stretch is by limiting our driving. We drive to and from work (he drops me off and I walk home or have a friend pick me up) and plan a once a week trip to our local supermarket.We also try to plan any other trips on that same day.

Even though food prices are rising, cutting back on food is not something we will be doing. However, we're not opposed to trying off brands in both gorcheries and household goods, to save some money.

One of my favorite areas to shop is the day old bread rack. It's usually the first place I hit when we got to the store. Day old breads can be frozen and will last at least a week, sometimes a bit longer.

To save money on milk, we will stop by braums ice cream store, since their milk is a dollar cheaper than our local supermarket. Plus Braum's milk is much better in taste and free of hormones.

Another way we are able to save money is by browsing the local yard sales for clothing, household goods, books, toys, etc. Despite what some people think, you can find very good gently used clothing at fantasitc rates.

A few weekends ago, we stopped at one yard sale where I was able to find some great clothes at a dime each! Many of the clothes were brand new! The lady who was holding the sale just wanted to get rid of the clothing. I was able to buy a brand new daskin jacket for a dime! My best bargain yet!!

Last weekend my husband was able to find peices to one of his favorite games (Heroscape) for fifty cents! We also found a gently used leap pad that came with educational games that all of our kids can enjoy.

The above are just a few ways we are able to make a dollars stretch during these insane times.

What are some ways you save money? I would love to hear some ideas and I am sure others would love to hear them as well!