How I {Finally} Started to Make Money Blogging: Part 2

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post called, “How I Finally Started Making Money Blogging.” It quickly became the #2 most-popular post of  all time on my blog- and I’ve been blogging for 2 and a half years! Surprisingly enough, people want to learn how to make money! 😉

I really enjoyed the feedback on the post and love hearing tips from others as well. I quickly decided that another post was in order!

Without further ado, Here are a few more tips that have helped me earn a little bit of blogging income:

(to read #1-3, click here)

4.) Switch to WordPress if you’re on blogger.

Seriously. I was a die-hard Blogger fan for many years, but after attending Blog Elevated in September, I decided to make the switch. Why, you ask? For one, if you are on Blogger, you don’t own your content, Blogger does. When you are on WordPress.org (make sure it’s the .org and not the .com), you own everything! I use BlueHost for my hosting and have not had a moment’s trouble- plus it’s very affordable.

Plus, WordPress makes it a little easier to figure out SEO. A little. 🙂 While I’ll never fully understand SEO, (will anyone?) WP has a tool that lets me see how SEO friendly my particular blog post is. And it’s super easy. If you’re looking to switch but don’t think you want to figure out doing it yourself, Blogelina has a great Blogger-to-Wordpress transfer kit, which includes a full year of free hosting!

5.) Pinterest is Your Friend

For real. I’m sure most of you know that Pinterest is quickly rising in popularity, so much that it may even exceed FaceBook’s pageviews in the next year or so! So, where do you want to spend your time and effort on social media? It’s Pinterest, kids!

(Not to mention, FB only shows your posts to a tiny percentage of your page fans, while your Pinterest posts show to all of your followers!)

If you want to know the honest truth listen up: Over half of my traffic comes from Pinterest. Almost every single day. That, my friends, is reason to pay attention to Pinterest!

So how can your grow your Pinterest following? There are tons of blog posts on this topic alone, but here’s a short rundown:

Pin your stuff often. Yes, pin your own blog posts. A lot. Make lots of new boards so that you can pin each blog post to several different boards. (For example, pin your recipe for BBQ ribs to a board for BBQ, one for main dishes, and one for the “best recipes you’ve ever tasted!” or something along those lines) I’ve found that pinning items late at night produces the greatest results, so I’ll always pin a few things before I go to bed each night, plus a few more during the day. You can also pin posts that you wrote a long time ago but were popular- this is a good way to get those old posts back into the light!

Pin other people’s stuff too. You don’t want to only pin your own stuff. Although blogging is a bit, um, inherently about one’s own blog, showcase other bloggers’ stuff, too! Share the love! You’ll probably end up with a few new friends, too.

Make “pin-worthy” images. This is one of those buzz words that has popped up in the blogging world lately, but it’s SO helpful in getting your blog posts re-pinned (and ultimately, leads to page views and hopefully long-term readers.) Look at the difference in the two images below:

This:

vs this:

See how the editing, cropping, and adding pretty wording to it changed the look entirely? The second image is definitely more likely to get pinned. (Oh, and if you want this recipe, you can find it here!)

Okay, so this one tip is starting to be a blog post of its own. 🙂 Be on the lookout for part 3- I see it coming!

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