How Long Does It Take to Make Money Blogging?
Woah, what a question… if you want to know how long does it take to make money blogging, then I’m guessing you’re in the process of starting a blog and you’re not quite sure yet if it would be a profitable endeavor?
Am I right?
Ok, even if I was wrong and you have already created a blog, chances are that if you’re reading this you’re not seeing the results that you would have expected.
Listen… I don’t want to bullshit you into reading 3000 words before you get the answer to your question, so here it is:
It’s going to take a long time to make money from your blog. At least 6 months, if you’re going at it in a more casual way.
F*CK… I hear you saying to yourself, you thought it’s going to be way less than that since so many gurus advertise getting rich overnight with a blog.
Oh well, sorry to disappoint you, but such is the harsh reality of the blogging world.
Yeah, 6 months is a long ass time to wait before you can start stacking up piles of money from your blog posts.
But…
And there’s always a but, it all depends on your blogging style, the time you put into it, the niche, the monetization, and more.
Some might get there sooner, others way later… I’ve seen some people who have earned their first dollar blog, 14 months after they have started it.
Yeah… scary thought, isn’t it?
So, grab a pen and a piece of paper and write down some of these keynotes on how long it takes to earn money from your blog and how to speed the entire thing.
How Long Does It Take to Make Money Blogging?
I’m not going to bullshit you with words such as: “Hey, if one of the biggest reasons to start a blog is to earn money, then you’re in it for the wrong reasons”
Nah man, you do you… I know the struggle, plus I would say that the number one reason for most people that start a blog is to earn money anyway.
So, let’s cut to the chase, there are two main points that you need to consider when calculating how long does it take to earn money blogging.
1. How much time you dedicate blogging
I don’t know if you realize this or not, but in order to become even slightly successful with your blog in order to make money, you will have to dedicate a ton of time to it.
Why is that? I hear you asking…
Well for starters, you should treat this as a regular job. There’s a reason why people work 9-5 and not 9 to f*cking 9:30 because you wouldn’t earn a damn thing if you just worked for 30-60 minutes per day.
The amount of time and effort you put into your blog will reflect how long it takes to make money from it.
If you put in 5-10 hours a week, it’s probably going to take you a long time before you can start earning a passive income blogging.
However, if you go at it like a maniac (ok, maybe not really a maniac), meaning that you will put in a ton of hours of work every day, chances are that you will see success faster than others.
Key thing to remember
Basically, if you want to earn money from your blog faster, you should put in more work, write more content, and start getting traffic to your blog sooner.
2. How you monetize your blog
The type of monetization you use on your blog will also dictate how long it will take to make money.
You see, there are a ton of ways that you can make money with your blog you have:
1. Display Ads
One of the easiest ways to monetize a blog is with display advertising. Joining an ad network like Google AdSense as a publisher is pretty straightforward and it doesn’t come with too many requirements.
Many bloggers choose to make money with Google AdSense, and oftentimes that’s enough for them to not get bothered with other methods.
It might take a lot of time to make money blogging using AdSense though, especially if you’re not doing AdSense arbitrage.
Plus, not every niche or blog will benefit from using blog ads. Find out the pros and cons of putting ads on your blog.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Bloggers who use affiliate marketing correctly will be able to make a heck of a lot more money than those who are just monetizing with display ads.
That’s why learning how affiliate marketing works, is instrumental if you want to make a lot of money blogging.
3. Sell Ad Space
Even though this might seem similar to the first option (it kinda is), it does come with a huge difference.
Instead of having ad networks like Google AdSense dictating what ads go on your site and how much you will get paid to display them, selling the ad space yourself gives you a lot more freedom.
You can either list your blog on a site like BuySellAds and wait for advertisers to come to buy your ad space, or you could go at it solo, and create an “Advertise with us” page, where you invite people to buy ads on your site.
Another great way is to create a Fiverr gig where you could sell either links or ads on your site.
4. Sponsored Posts
Companies and other bloggers in the same niche as yours will often lurk your blog (if it’s popular enough), and they might offer you money to write or publish a post for them on your blog.
How great is that?
Most of the time you won’t even have to write the damn thing yourself, so all you have to do is copy/paste their article into your WordPress dashboard, click on Publish, and cash a FAT check for that.
5. Sell Your Products
If you have your own products, that’s even better than affiliate marketing, you could sell them on your site and make a lot more money.
You don’t need to be the next Steve Jobs either, you could start crocheting dog sweaters and sell those.
Neat huh?
Ok, maybe you’re not yet in your crocheting phase (why aren’t you? it’s relaxing as f*ck), you could create digital products such as eBooks, and services that you could sell.
6. Courses
Do you master any digital marketing skills? For example: writing articles, designing graphics (logos, ads, infographics), creating websites, etc.
Or, maybe you have some real-life skills such as putting out cigarettes with your tongue.
Great… you could create a course and teach others how to do exactly that.
Yeah, there are thousands of courses out there and the market is limited and it’s hard to find students.
Boo-hoo.
Stop with the excuses. If Karen can have a course on Udemy on how to put fake nails, then so could you.
Figure out what you’re good at and create a course for that. Sell it for $5 / $50 / $500, it doesn’t matter, in the end, you will earn extra money from your blog.
7. Membership Site
Want to make easy money blogging? Turn your entire blog into a membership site and ask for money for people to read it.
I know… what a genius and new idea… it’s not like newspapers haven’t done this for years right?
But you know what though? It works.
There are many fanatics out there who can’t get enough information about the hobbies that they are into, or people who are genuinely looking to provide support for blogs with great content devoid of ads.
Whatever the case, membership blogs make a ton of money, and they don’t have to do anything special other than writing blog posts as usual.
If you think your blog content is the sh*t and people should pay you money to read it, then be my guest and put a paywall on that bad boy and see how it goes.
8. Consulting
Depending on the niche your blog is in, you might be also able to coach and consult other people and companies based on the expertise you got.
Or to get more client work if you’re a freelancer.
9. Selling Leads
You could do CPA marketing and not have to sell a thing, just gather leads and you get paid.
Another way is to ask big companies in that niche if they want qualified leads from your blog and you ask them for money in exchange.
Simple as that.
10. More…
Listen… there are a ton more ways to make money blogging, and honestly, this blog post is not about that.
So go read how to monetize a blog.
Key thing to remember
The monetization method that you choose, will also dictate how fast you will earn money from your blog.
Some methods will bring revenue faster than others. For example, with Google AdSense, it will take you a while longer to earn a decent amount of money versus using affiliate marketing where you can get $49 (just an example) commissions for every sale.
Having 100 people a day visiting your site won’t earn you more than a few dollars in display ads (if you can even make $1), but you can get a sale for an affiliate product that will make you much more than that.
How To Make Money From Your Blog Faster
You don’t always have to wait a long time to make money blogging, some blogs can start earning money in their first day or month (more realistic).
Here are three ways to earn your first dollar from your blog as fast as possible:
Pick a good niche
It all starts with choosing a niche for your blog. If you’re starting a blog on something that you’re not familiar with or have no interest in, you won’t be able to stay interested for a long time.
At least that’s what most people would advise you (myself included).
But…you know what? For just for this time… I’m going to say:
F*ck that.
If you want to earn a GOOD amount of money from your blog fast, then you should pick a niche that’s hot and trending all the time.
Meaning: Evergreen content.
Yes, that’s contrary to most advice out there, even if you’re not familiar with the niche, and you might not be interested in it long-term, and somedays you won’t be motivated to write blog posts about it.
WHO CARES IF YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE NICHE
I’ve told you before, treat this sh*t more like a job or better yet, a startup if you want to see results faster.
Most of us don’t have jobs that we love (well I love my job now as a full-time marketing wizard for 14+ years), but… most people do their jobs just to get paid.
Do you think crab fishermen love their job? NO, in fact, they have one of the highest mortality rates of any job, but they do it because they earn a lot of money.
Well, the same can be applied to blogging.
For example, I love doing arbitrage either with AdSense or affiliate offers and products, where I send thousands of paid traffic to my websites every day.
But you know what I also like? Building sources of passive incomes, meaning: blogs in various niches that earn me money on almost autopilot.
I don’t have to love the topic of those blogs or even be particularly interested in them, but I do love making money out of them, so I guess it’s a tradeoff that works for me.
How do I get to write articles for these blogs if I’m not interested or know about the subject? I outsource them, it’s as easy as that.
Don’t have money to outsource your content writing? Write it yourself, even if you know jack sh*t about something, you could learn anything with Google and YouTube… that’s how I did it for many years when I started out.
Write content faster
Speaking of writing content.
You want your blog to make money faster?
Learn how to write blog posts faster. The more content you pump out, the more visitors your blog will get.
Genius formula right?
For example, I’ve started NetHustler in 2018, and I have only written 10 blog posts that year lol.
Needless to say, my traffic sucked until recently when I’ve started publishing new content.
Good thing I didn’t really care if I was getting traffic to this blog anyway, since my online income is not dependent on it, and it’s more like a hobby at the moment.
I hate writing blog posts, but I love writing on NetHustler, for some weird reason it’s therapeutic to me, it’s the only website that I own where I don’t outsource my content.
Probably because I use it to vent a lot, but I digress…
So yeah, write more, get more chances of ranking higher in the search engines for a ton of content and you will get more visits.
Related: Things to Do After Publishing a Blog Post
Choose a monetization technique
I’ve shown you the above 9 monetization techniques but like I’ve said there are a ton more.
Depending on which one you choose to apply, will also dictate how long it takes to make money blogging.
Like I’ve said previously if you’re goal is to earn coin fast, then forget about AdSense, and try something else like affiliate marketing, or selling your own products.
In order to make enough money from display ads and even affiliate marketing (if you choose to become an Amazon affiliate), you will need a ton of traffic (think thousands a month) in order to get a decent income blogging.
There are small niche websites that don’t get enough traffic yet they earn HUGE amounts of money simply because they promote high ticket affiliate offers.
Your ability to bring traffic to your blog
Alright this one is pretty important.
None of this stuff will matter if your blog doesn’t get any traffic to it.
Wait Stephen, *WTF* do you mean by traffic, are we on a highway?
No, friend…website traffic simply means, people like you and me that are visiting other websites and blogs. So visitors, traffic, audience, eyeballs, whatever you wanna call it.
YOU WANT TONS OF EYEBALLS
You need these eyeballs to stare at your content and read every blog post that you publish, click on AdSense ads, and buy all the stuff you’re promoting as an affiliate.
Without the eyeballs or website traffic, I’m afraid you won’t make money blogging, and the thing is that it will take a while to get visitors coming to your site.
Many bloggers that are starting out will usually just stick to writing posts and think that they will automatically rank in Google the next day while doing basic on-page SEO (search engine optimization).
That never happens. Unless you’re a unicorn, and at that point, well…congrats on being a unicorn.
The reason why most bloggers fail is that they don’t realize that SEO takes a lot of time to take effect, and because of that it takes a long time to earn money blogging.
Usually, it takes between 3 to 6 months (possibly even more, if you’re in a competitive niche), and that you won’t see any visitors in your first couple of months.
So it’s important to realize that before you start blogging. Especially if money is your number one reason to do it in the first place.
However, there’s more to website traffic other than waiting for SEO, such as free traffic from other sources (social media, blog comments, etc) and paid advertising.
In fact, you could even get free advertising credit from Bing and Google that you can use to boost traffic to your fresh blog at the beginning, you can even make a profit if you’re smart with it and have some good affiliate products:
Read more:
Additional Tips To Earn Money From Your Blog Fast
Here are some additional tips that will help you to make money blogging faster.
Create a content list
If you create a content calendar or posts list, you will be able to write articles faster and thus get more visitors to your website in a shorter amount of time.
Use online marketing tools like Semrush and AnswerThePublic to come up with content ideas either from your competitors or just from regular folks who are searching the web every day.
A content list is important when you want to maximize your blogging time if you get up in the morning or come home from work late at night and you have a couple of hours to dedicate to your blog.
With a content calendar, you don’t have to spend half of the time researching what articles to write, and you can just go straight to work.
Don’t chase shiny objects
If you’ve picked a niche and started your blog but you don’t see the results you have wanted, don’t just quit and start a new one.
Instead, make it a priority and dedicate even more time to it, in order to make it work.
Want to learn a secret? Most niches work anyway, the key is to not quit before your blog flourishes.
I’ve been caught in this trap many times over the years, I was dedicating a lot of time and energy to something, and then when it didn’t work the way I was expecting, I would just quit and jump on to the next shiny thing.
So by doing that, you never actually give your blog enough time to rank in SEO to see some results that will motivate you to move forward.
Don’t chase after new niches and other ways to make money online.
If you’ve started something, you might as well take it to a level where you’re satisfied. It’s much harder to start from scratch every time, thinking of a new niche, new domain name, new blog layout, new content, etc.
Don’t be an idiot like me and jump from a blog about cars to creating a Google News website and then go to CPA affiliate marketing in 1 year, and then wonder why the heck you didn’t get the results that you wanted.
Build an email list
You’ve heard it a thousand times by now from many marketers over the years, and if you didn’t then here it is again:
The money is in the list
I don’t know who first wrote that, and honestly, I can’t be bothered to search for it, but I do know that they were damn right.
Starting an email list could be one of the greatest things that you can do if you want to increase your blog’s traffic and revenue.
Imagine, no more waiting for SEO to take effect, you write a blog post, send an email, and boom, thousands of people are now reading your new article.
Or, you could send an affiliate link to buy essential oils (because that’s what’s important these days), and earn money with the push of a button. Literally.
How Long Does it Take to Make Money Blogging: Key Takeaways
You will only see results based on how much time you dedicate to your blog, this is honestly the most important thing in my opinion.
Not quitting right before you hit the jackpot is a huge thing that you need to keep in mind.
Even if that jackpot is just a $10 check, it’s a huge stimulant that will give you the motivation to keep ongoing.
So to recap, if you want to make money blogging fast:
- Dedicate a lot of time to it
- Pick an evergreen niche
- Monetize it the right way
- Learn how to send traffic faster than what it takes for SEO to take effect.
- Build an email list
There you have it, now go out there and start hustlin’.
Until next time,
Stephen
Frequently Asked Questions
They don’t dedicate enough time to building their blog or they are anxious because they didn’t make money the first month and jump to another thing.
Basically, you have to give it time for your blog to flourish and make money, otherwise, your blog will fail.
It could take anywhere between 4 to 6 months, some even more than that, depending on the niche and how much content you put up.
You could earn money blogging fast if you know how to get traffic to your blog without SEO and use proper monetization techniques for that.
So for example social media traffic and monetizing your blog with affiliate offers is a good method to use before SEO traffic kicks in to use display ads.
You publish content that attracts visitors to your blog, and then make money by display ads or selling products, services, and more.
There are many blog monetization methods that you can use to earn a passive income online.
It depends on the niche that they are in, how much traffic their blogs are getting, and what type of monetization method they are applying.
So it could be anything from a couple of dollars a month to millions (yes, millions a month blogging).
The first thing you do is learn how to start a blog, preferably in an evergreen niche like money or health and then you write good content that attracts visitors that will ultimately make you money.
You can make money even with 1,000 visits a month if you’re selling a high ticket item, but if you want to make money with display ads such as AdSense you will need a lot more than that, think 10,000+ visits a month.
It depends, if you put in the work to make your blog successful by writing quality content and getting traffic then you will get to earn a lot of money so it will be worth it.
Ah, well pretty much any niche can work, but here are a few popular ones:
Finance, Fashion, Food, Fitness, Lifestyle, Travel, DIY blogs.
It depends on how they choose to monetize their blog. If you monetize a blog with display ads such as Google AdSense, you will get paid when users click or view ads on your site.
If you monetize it with affiliate marketing, you will get paid a commission when someone buys a product through your affiliate links.
