How do bloggers make money? – 5 bloggers analyzed

I’ve analyzed 5 income reports I came across on Pinterest and looked a bit into the bloggers. Here are the things I found from just skimming over each of the income reports alone. I also put in the correlation to Pinterest being an important factor in traffic for bloggers. Let’s get into it and answer the question “How do bloggers make money?”

This post contains affiliate links*

Making Sense Of Cents – Michelle

*1,5 Mio Dollars in 2018*
You might know that blog name from her many viral and semi-viral pins. She’s had her blog for over 8 years & is really killing it. Definitely someone I look to for inspiration when it comes to growing my blog into a fulltime job.
Her Pinterest Reach is currently at around 1,8 Mio impressions and her pins have a very specific branding that stands out to anyone. If you find your way onto her blog you will see that almost every blog post leads to either one of her products or a product she recommends. She writes very honest and finds a way to write the negative sides of things without sounding pessimistic.
She also has something that I see more and more bloggers do: A free Facebook group. Depending on target audience this seems like a really good thing to have. If I will do that myself? I don’t know. I’m 20 and as you might know this generation isn’t really on Facebook much anymore. If your audience gets bigger this definitely sounds like a bomb thing to start building.

Her blog also has a “Recommendations” page very prominently linked in the menu, leading to a list of products and services in different niches. This is a great way to make more affiliate sales in any niche.
Not only does she have this neat page but her blog posts are also heavily linked, leading to other blog posts, her (free & paid) products or affiliate links. You’ll see with the others that heavily linking your blog posts seems to be a running theme that works for affiliate marketing and shouldn’t be something you should shy away from when it fits. She places a TON of call to actions in her blog posts, especially the ones about blogging. Also a great way to keep people on your page or a product link.
At the end of at least her blogging blog posts she has a list of resources that are connected to blogging. This targets newcomers and also helps with driving affiliate sales in. It’s something I’ve started doing myself and it’s a pretty easy thing to do once and optimize for every blog post.
Lastly her blog posts always have her newsletter sign up very front and center at the end, every single time. Something I also do and I find that it helps a LOT. Especially paired up with a call to action and/or free value with the sign up.

Other than that I can see her talking about networking a lot and that is the key in pretty much any business and something I definitely need to work on and most of you probably feel the same. This also helps with the last thing I need to mention: She has affiliates for her own digital products that she sells which further the reach of her products beyond her blog, driving in more sales. This is a great idea no matter how big your blog or product is, definitely look into that.

As you can probably tell by the way I described her blog: She makes most of her money from affiliate marketing, sponsored posts and her digital products. 
If you need more insight on the answer to the question “How do bloggers make money?” you should check out her products.

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Caroline Vencil

When I found Caroline’s blog and her income reports I was really blown away. She details a lot of her ups and downs in these posts and is brutally honest about her struggles with blogging. She makes 25k dollars a month on average as of her 2018 reports and makes most of this from her own products and affiliate marketing. Her Pinterest currently has 2,1 Mio monthly impressions and she also has her pins branded and even used different pin designs for different niches she writes about. Just like Michelle she has a digital product for pretty much any niche she is writing about and always has a way to lead readers to something she made.

Her blog posts are full of links to other posts, her products or affiliate products, giving her multiple opportunities to interest a reader into investing money. At the end of her income reports she always links a list of resources with affiliate links that conveniently sends more people to the products she uses. Not only that but like Michelle she has a resource page, all the things she recommends in one place. Giving the reader convenience is giving her the better opportunity to make some extra money. Definitely something we all can learn from.

Just like my blog posts, her posts are ended with a direct newsletter sign up that keeps readers connected to her and her upcoming products. Since email lists are one of the few things you’ll 100% forever own in business. Since people need to sign up for it, you can sell more targeted on there and give exclusive value. Also helps a lot with connecting and networking with readers and other bloggers.

Whole Kitchen Sink – Bailey

Bailey is the first blog on this list that isn’t really blogging about blogging, not even that much in her income reports. Her blog is mainly about food, cooking and living healthy. Her latest income report gave us the number of 10k dollar, 3k dollar after taxes and expenses. That is a perfect example to show you that you don’t need a blog about blogging to make a blog your job. She has a reach of 500k impressions on Pinterest currently and her pins all have the same color scheme and similar filters, tying her profile together nicely. 

She makes most of her money from advertisements, affiliate marketing and sponsored posts but decided to cut down on sponsored posts to concentrate on her own product. That product is her own cookbook and I think that’s super cool. There hasn’t been an income report including the numbers of the cookbook but this sounds like something great to do if you’re a food blogger. 

You start to see a trend when I tell you that she ALSO has a resource page on her blog full of affiliate links to products she recommends to her readers. She also talks about the good and bad things in depth without making it sound moody and she connects a lot with other bloggers and her readers. These things are so essential and I know they can be hard, I hear you, working on it myself, but it’s clearly working.

The Fab 20s – Claudia

Let’s look at a smaller blog that blogs about more niches and is still doing great. Claudia writes about more than 3 different niches on her blog The Fab 20s and still manages to make 3-4k dollar on average every month. In her income reports you can definitely see the good sides of this and the hard work that it takes. A thing that she and tons of other bloggers talk about is Mediavine, a plattform displaying ads on your blog and paying better than most other services. You need to have a certain amount of monthly visitors on your blog to get accepted by them and she did it twice. Definitely inspiring for me, since I’m working towards that alongside the digital products I’m trying to offer to my readers.

Her Pinterest impressions are currently at 4,9 Mio impressions and that’s an insane number if you ask me. She mentions a pin recently going viral and this seems to be the aftermath, very impressive. Her pins are specifically branded for every niche and she is on tons of group boards. All the bloggers I mentioned until now are on group boards but Claudia is on an insane amount of them and I honestly wanna know how she manages to keep up with it. No, for real, Claudia! Tell us your secret!

Her blog posts are long, not as heavily decorated with links as you’d think after hearing it with the last three bloggers and she also has the important newsletter sign up at the end of every post. Gotta keep those readers with you!
Her income consists mostly of displaying ad’s, affiliate marketing and ONE digital product!

Healthy Savvy & Wise – Dagmar & Debbie

This is a blog shared by Dagmar and Debbie and the income report is actually for one of their personal blogs (TheFlooringGirl) in the niche of home and furniture. Another example that you can make money in niches that aren’t blogging about blogging.
The reports shows 22k dollars of monthly income and that mainly comes from affiliate links to home related products and digital products she created in correlation to her posts.
The shared blog has a Pinterest that brings in 600k impressions and is filled with branded pins. I can only assume the same goes for either of their personal blogs, since those social media pages aren’t linked.

Again the blog posts are heavily linked with fitting product links and the post is ended with a list of resources in the case of the income report. She also mentions the importance of SEO a lot if you want to have a better reach as a blogger and I absolutely agree. I’ve been working on that myself since I started this blog and I still feel like I procrastinated researching keywords a little too much, even when they can make all the difference with visibility.

I can only recommend all the income reports that I have linked to get an in-depth few on how these bloggers work and think. It answers a lot of the question “How do bloggers make money?” and it really motivates you to do better. After writing this I honestly want to do 10 things at once. For now I’ll definitely will work on getting more visibility, marketing my products better and learning more about affiliate marketing. What about you? Tell me in the comments below.

What do all of them do?

-They are all really honest.
-They all learned a lot before working hard to get there. I speak from experience that there can be a lot of trial and error. With more errors than you would expect.
-They almost all have their posts full of links to products and other posts.
-They almost all have resource pages.
-All of them heavily use Pinterest SEO, branding and group boards to their advantage.
-Almost all of them have products for all the niches they write about.
-Most of their blog posts are average to lengthy with tons of in depth knowledge (and links!)
-They all have goals and work hard on them.

You’re just starting out? Here are my recommendations.

You don’t only want to know the important question of “How do bloggers make money?” but also want to actually start a blog. I have a few recommendations for you:
Bluehost – my hosting service for the last 3 years, I’m super happy with it!
Grammarly – this tool makes sure my grammar is right in all my social media posts.
Tailwind – Tired of manually pinning every day? This tool helps you get your pins in front of a bigger audience and I’ve been using it for a year now.
ConvertKit – Want to start an email list to generate more sales or just to keep your readers updated? This is a great service to use.
Blogging Bossbabe – a course I made for all the people wanting to start a blog and make it successful. Everything you need to know in one place and affordable if you want to save some $$$.
Blogger Starter Pack – a completely free email course that helps you with the basic beginnings of starting a professional blog- Sign up for it down below and get started now:

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How do bloggers make money by Rabea