10 steps to making £1,000 a month with your blog 

Would you like to make money from home working for yourself? Blogging for money has proven to be a life-saver for me and I think you can do it too!

Many people start a blog, with over 31 million bloggers in the US alone, however it’s a much smaller number that go on to make a full-time or even part-time living from their site.  

I’ve been blogging for over five years now and looking at the people who are making a good living out of their blog the number one thing they did was not give up. 

Making money from your blog is not something that happens overnight, but something that happens when you follow a solid strategy and stick with it. 

You don’t need special qualifications to be a blogger, everything you need to know can be learned as you go which is why I love it as an option for parents who want to make money from home. 

But what do you need to actually do to get to a stage where your blog is making £1,000 a month?

My parenting blog, The Mummy Bubble, makes over £3,500 per month via advertising and affiliate income. I’ve managed to reach this point by following a strategy, and I know that strategy works because I’m now implementing it on my new site and seeing great results! 

Whether you are interested in starting a blog or want to take your blog to the next level, this 10 step plan to making £1,000 a month with your blog will show you how. 

You may also like: How to start a money-making blog

This post contains affiliate links.

1. Find your niche

Many bloggers begin their site as a type of journal where they are sharing their thoughts on life, the universe and everything.

Now, I always say there is no “right” way to blog. Many bloggers, the Unmumsy Mum is one example, have started a blog and created an amazing career from writing down funny and inspiring stories from their life.

BUT, that particular method of making money from your blog is very dependent on social media and growing a very loyal and engaged following on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (or all three). It’s the influencer model of making money which is reliant largely on you making a name for yourself on social media. 

That can take TIME and the market is flooded. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible, it just means it can be a long old slog that takes a long time to see results.

When it comes to blogging I have focused my efforts on SEO and Pinterest. So that means I am trying to create content that helps people, stuff that people are searching for on Google and Pinterest. I’m not reliant on them just loving my sparkling personality! This is the niche site model of making money with your blog. 

The influencers I described above, the ones who become big by sharing their journal, their thoughts on life, they largely rely on traffic from social media.

Niche bloggers get traffic from Google first, which helps them grow their mailing list and social media followings, and then traffic from both Google and social media.

There are always exceptions to any rule, of course. Some bloggers do straddle both sides of what I have described – producing content for their social media audience while also producing content that gains traction on Google. 

However by finding your niche you massively improve your chances to monetising your blog faster.

In the early months of blogging it’s totally understandable you may not yet have decided your niche. So focus on two or three topics and see which one provides you with the most success. You may find you narrow down to one thing quickly or it may take a little time.

By finding your niche, you increase your chances of getting decent traffic and more traffic leads to more opportunities to make money with your blog – whether that be through ads, affiliate marketing or selling your own products.

2. Gear your entire website up for the user

Make everything about your website easy to use for the user. It should be easy to navigate and be obvious what it is about from the moment someone lands on your website.

Key areas to look at are:

• Your site structure. What are your categories? So for example if you are a parenting blogger your categories might be Reviews, Crafts, and Parenting Tips. Within those categories you may have sub-categories that are related to them. Try to keep the number reasonable – you don’t want hundreds of categories as that could confuse your reader. Aim for five to 10 categories.
• Your about me page. You want this page to be extremely clear about who you are, who you help, and why you’re qualified to provide that help. If your blog is about breastfeeding and you are a midwife or lactation consultant, you had better mention that extremely high up in your About Me page. Like in the first sentence!
• Internal links. Link between your content ALL the time. Every post should have links to at least three of your existing posts and when you publish a new post you need to go back to older content that’s relevant and link to that new post. By doing this you are spreading out the link love from your high performing posts to the newer ones, which gives you a better chance of ranking on Google but also keeps people on your site for longer.

3. Pay attention to your site speed

The speed at which your site loads matters to users. No one wants to be waiting more than 10 seconds for a page to load, they want to wait less than two seconds.

One thing that can help with this is great hosting. If you are just starting out then a host like BlueHost is a good choice for beginners.

If you’re starting to gain more traffic then Lyrical Host is a fantastic option – great value and great for speed. They also have a lot of free resources for clients about improving blog speed too. 

Another great way to ensure your site speed is great is to pick a good theme. One that looks professional and is easy to use is also essential. The BluChic themes are fantastic, with so many great options!

4. Write 50+ brilliant posts 

Once you have those basic building blocks in place – a site that has a clear niche plus a site that loads quickly – then you need to write great content.

I’m talking about content that really answers the question the user has to the point where they leave your post knowing everything they need to know.

Your content may focus on how-tos (such as crafts or DIY projects) or reviews of products in your niche. You need to be thorough, using both words and pictures. If you are comparing products, then add a table into your post that breaks it down for the user in a really visually friendly way.

In order to hit £1,000 of income per month from your blog you need to get some steady traffic. The more blog posts you have, the more opportunities you have having to get more traffic. 

So when you are starting out 50 blog posts probably sounds scary. That’s especially the case when you consider most good posts that fully answer a search query are going to be between 800 and 2,000+ words! You’re basically going to be writing a novel. 

But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and money-making blogs don’t get created in one either! 

So come up with a content writing strategy that works for you. Get a list of blog posts ideas and steadily work through those. 

Part of the key to success in blogging is being able to stick at it during this difficult period where you’re making no money but you need to spend a lot of time writing content. It sucks sometimes, but the rewards are amazing at the other end! 

5. Target topics for people interested in your niche

If you are clear on your niche then it should be easy for you to figure out what your articles should be about.

You could try researching Google keywords with a tool such as Keysearch or simply by checking out the search results when you type in words you think are relevant to your niche.

Keywords may be super short (such as “Amazon Fire review”) or a little wordier (such as “how to get more blog traffic”).

Doing the free version requires you to have a decent knowledge of the type of keywords your audience will already be using.

For example in the baby niche I know parents may be searching a lot about baby sleep. I know I won’t rank for terms like “baby sleep” because bigger sites like Mumsnet will always beat me. But I can maybe rank for keywords searching down reviews for specific products that help with baby sleep.

When I have an idea for a keyword I think might work, I pop it into Google and hit space, then see what autocomplete pops up with. Often there’s a lot of inspiration there.

Then I’ll hit return and check out the competition. What types of posts are there? Can I compete with those sites? As I said above, I know I can’t easily compete with a website like Mumsnet, but I probably can compete with another blog.

I also scroll down to where it says “related searches” because there are some great keyword ideas to be found there.

Another way to find keywords is to search relevant Facebook groups in your niche to see what topics people are discussing.

And there’s also Pinterest, which is now the key source of traffic for my sites. Go to the search bar, enter some keywords and see what additional keywords pop up in the bubbles just above the search results.
You can also check out Pinterest Trends for more inspiration regarding what topics are trending.

You can read lots more tips about using Pinterest for your blog here.

6. Find great affiliate programmes

Using affiliate links is a fantastic way to make money blogging whatever stage your blog is at.

You can make money with a blog that gets just a few hundred hits a month. It’s not necessarily about volume, it’s about serving your audience with what they need.

Affiliate links can be shared on your blog, emails or on social media. They are links that promote a particular product or website. When someone clicks that link and spends money on that site, you get a slice of the sale.

Some affiliate programmes like Amazon are not particularly generous (I sell thousands of pounds worth of products for them each month and the return is rather poor to say the least). You will find smaller sellers are far more generous, with some offering 50% of the sale to affiliates!

Find affiliate programmes that are relevant to your niche and sign up to them. Amazon is a good place to start of course as it does sell a lot of products but you need a HUGE amount of traffic to make a decent income there.

Affiliate networks work with brands to connect them with affiliates, so when you join a network you get access to whole bunch of big name companies such as Marks & Spencer for example.

Some great affiliate networks include Awin, Skimlinks, and ShareASale.

7. Sign up to an ad network 

Joining an ad network is a great way to make passive income from your site. 

As internet users I think we are all used to seeing a few ads here and there when we are browsing, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable when you are providing great content to ask your readers to view a few ads. 

With networks like MediaVine you can set how frequent ads are on your page, so if you do prefer them to be less intense then there’s the option to dial them back. 

There are several ad networks that work with bloggers out there, however some pay far more than others and client help and service can vary quite a lot. 

Most bloggers can qualify for Google AdSense however the pay from this is really pretty low. 

Bloggers with modest blog traffic do well with Ezoic, and I’ve read great reports about it from bloggers who use this ad network. 

I personally cannot recommend MediaVine enough. They are so so helpful and provide amazing resources to help you improve your earnings even after joining them. I’ve gone from earning around $500 a month from my ads with them to well over $5,000 on my best months. 

To meet the requirements to join MediaVine you need to have 50,000 sessions per month, which is quite a lot. In the meantime somewhere like Ezoic or Monumetric are good options so that you can earn money while building your blog traffic to join one of the larger ad networks. 

8. Build backlinks and interlink! 

One of the most time consuming processes for any blogger is building backlinks. For me personally, now that I get more traffic from Pinterest than Google is matters less to me these days but I think it’s still worth getting backlinks from other sites.

Whether you want to make money from sponsored posts or from lots of Google traffic that enables you to make cash from ads (or both), backlinks are important.

When other websites with a higher DA (Domain Authority) than you link to your website, this sends a signal that your site is legit. The more sites that point to yours the better. I would go one step further and add it’s important those sites have a higher DA than yours. One link from a DA 80+ site is worth so much more than 10 links from DA 5 websites.

In terms of sponsored posts, most brands looking to place sponsored posts look for blogs with a minimum DA of 10+. Ideally you will get your DA over 20.

How do you build those backlinks? Look for sites that take guest posts in your niche and connect with fellow bloggers in your niche who may be willing to link to your content.

There’s a great Facebook group called Bloggers’ DA Building that provides lots of opportunities for link swapping.

If you write great content some backlinks should flow to you naturally! I’ve had a few backlinks from big sites that I never asked for but are really worth having!

9. Keep your goal in mind

Having a specific goal can often help to focus your mind. So say for example you want to get your blog into MediaVine, which is one of the most popular ad networks for bloggers. You need to hit 50,000 sessions (not page views) per month. 

Now with that to aim for, all of the tasks you do each week on your blog need to be geared towards that goal.

When it comes to this strategy for me personally content is king and if you are wondering how you should be spending your time to grow your blog, I suggest the best use of it is to write new, epic blog content. 

10. Be patient and stick with it

There’s a lot of noise surrounding the blogging world. It can be easy to get discouraged when you feel that your blog isn’t moving – your traffic isn’t moving or you see bloggers making five-figure incomes in one month while you’ve forked out money for hosting and are yet to see a penny.

Please stop comparing your blog to others and focus on the next step that you need to take to make your blog grow. What can you do today that will put you in a stronger position in a year’s time?

This is likely to involve going back to the top of this list and working through it again. Are you focused on a niche? Is your site speed good? Have you joined several relevant affiliate networks and used their links in your content? Are you writing new content regularly? Are you targeting keywords you can realistically rank for?

See your blogging career as a long-term thing, not something you can work on for a few hours and see immediate results.

If you can be patient and work through the steps above with a level head then you will see vastly improve your chances of seeing results.

If you want to delve deeper I thoroughly recommend the amazing Blog Traffic ebook by Stray Curls blogger Angela Vaz. She’s got so many amazing tips for bloggers, as someone who has herself grown a profitable blog, and she’s also a very talented illustrator so her ebook is also a joy a look at as well as read.

This was a loooong post and I hope you found some useful pointers here. Remember, blogging for money is a marathon not a sprint. If you feel overwhelmed, take a break, take a step back, take the weekend off. It’s OK to need to take a little pause so that you can regroup. Some days you may feel that you’re not growing, but if you keep plugging away you will see progress.