Blog Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

9 Things I Love and Have Learned After 9 Years Of Blogging

Last Updated: August 10, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 34 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I still remember the month I started my blog. I don’t really remember the exact first day, but I remember the first month and how excited I was.

In August of 2011, I started Making Sense of Cents.

That was exactly 9 years ago!

Back then, I had no idea what I was doing, and I also had no goals for my blog.

I didn’t even really know what a blog was, or that they could make money.

I also didn’t even like to write at that time!

In the past 9 years, so much has changed for me.

It’s crazy to think that I started my blog nine years ago, especially when I consider all of the amazing things it has done for my life.

It was something I started and worked on in addition to my full-time day job as a financial analyst, and around two years after I started this blog, I quit my day job to blog full-time.

Some numbers on Making Sense of Cents:

My first blog post was published on August 10, 2011. You can read it here.
I have published 1,878 articles here on Making Sense of Cents. That number was higher about a month ago, but I recently deleted several hundred articles that I thought weren’t good enough.
I have 70,816 comments on my blog posts.
I’ve personally replied to 21,080 comments.
It took me 6 months to earn my first $100 from Making Sense of Cents.

First, a little backstory on how I began. [Read more…]

Should I Start A Blog? Here Are The Top Reasons You Will Love Blogging

Last Updated: June 16, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 3 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Are you wondering should I start a blog? Have you been thinking about starting a blog for a while? Maybe you’re trying to find a way to make extra money?

Today, I want to share why I love blogging so much, and how much it has changed my life over the years. My story may answer your question of should I start a blog.

A lot of people wonder if I started blogging to make extra money.

The truth is that I had no idea you could make money blogging when I started Making Sense of Cents.

I was so clueless when I first started my blog. And, it seemed like a very random thing when I first heard about blogging, but I decided to go ahead and create a blog of my own.

Making Sense of Cents was started simply as a way to keep track of my own personal finance journey. Most people in my life didn’t even know I had a blog. [Read more…]

How A Mother-Daughter Team Made $66,000 From Selling Their Blog in 8 Days

Last Updated: June 18, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Interested in learning how to sell a blog? In today’s guest post, Sarah Nuttycombe shares how a blog was sold for $66,000 in 8 days. She shares how you make money from a blog, tips for selling websites, and more.

Most everyone knows you can make money from learning how to start a blog, yet few people know you can make even more money from your blog by selling it.

I’m Sarah Nuttycombe and I’m a Content Specialist with Empire Flippers, the largest curated marketplace for buying and selling online businesses. I want to let you in on the lesser-known world of blog selling and how you can earn a life-changing sum of money for your blog.

A growing number of women are entering this industry and selling their blogs for tens of thousands, and sometimes millions of dollars on our marketplace. Women are doing incredible things with their online businesses, and their journeys are some of the best case studies to learn from.

This is why I’m excited to bring you the success story of a mother and her three daughters who made $66,000 from selling their blog in just eight days. [Read more…]

How I Attracted Millions Of Readers To My Blog

Last Updated: June 20, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Today, I want to introduce you to my friend Bobby Hoyt of Millennial Money Man and Facebook Ads For Bloggers.

In 2019, his online blogging business brought in over $1,000,000 of revenue, he has been able to grow his email list to over 60,000 readers, and millions of page views. And, he attributes these accomplishments to his decision to master one one simple traffic source – Facebook ads.

Bobby is a former band director who left his teaching job after making $3 from his blog. He’ll tell you that was not the best idea for everyone, but it worked for him and he now blogs full-time.

He’s doing something a little different than the average blogger, which is focusing heavily on Facebook to drive his traffic and increase his blogging income, and he has seen great success from it!

He grew his blog quickly with Facebook advertising, and he is here today to teach you all about it. He strongly believes that Facebook ads is a great way to grow your blog’s email list, increase your page views, increase your affiliate income, and more. He’s seen it work for him, and he uses this course to teach others how to have the same success. [Read more…]

The Daily, Weekly and Monthly Habits for Building a $100,000 Blog

Last Updated: August 9, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 24 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great article to share from R.J. Weiss. He purchased my course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing back in 2017, and has since grown an amazing website. He now has a six-figure blog that receives around 500,000 monthly visitors. Enjoy!

Before launching The Ways To Wealth in 2016, I read the entire archives of multiple blogs’ income reports. For some blogs, like Making Sense of Cents (which started publishing them in 2013) this meant going through years of old posts.

It was time well spent.

I learned a lot about what worked and what didn’t when it comes to building a profitable blog. And with that knowledge in hand, I set a goal to build a blog that would replace my full-time job.

Fast-forward 14 months and that goal was accomplished. I was comfortable leaving a job I’d held for 10 years.

It’s not like I was knocking it out of the park. I was making about $3,000 per month at the time. Still, with a healthy emergency fund, I decided to take the leap and become a full-time blogger.

Fast-forward even further, to today, and The Ways To Wealth is doing great. It reaches around 500,000 visitors every month and has surpassed the next goal I set for myself — building a six-figure blog. [Read more…]

How to Optimize a Blog Post for SEO

Last Updated: March 21, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 13 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great article from Trinity Owen on how to optimize a blog post for SEO. I hear a lot of questions about SEO from readers, so this is perfect timing! Trinity has been researching and testing work from home opportunities for more than 10 years and enjoys sharing the information gathered with fellow introverts. Concurrently, she works as a freelance SEO auditor, consultant, and writer. She also has a free 6 Day SEO Boot Camp that you can sign up.

They say SEO takes time.

You can dot your i’s and cross your t’s, but for some reason, a blog post that you optimize for SEO could take six months to a year (or more) to rank on Google, right?

Wrong.

While there’s always the possibility that a brand new blog post needs time to build authority and rank on Google, it shouldn’t take a full year.

In all my years as a freelance SEO, not once did I stumble upon an old blog post making its own way to the first page of Google after a year or more in existence.

If an older post climbs the ranks, it’s because someone revisits it and optimizes it for search engines. [Read more…]

The Free Blogging Planner Workbook

Last Updated: May 14, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Looking for a workbook to get you started with your blog?

The Blogging Planner is a free workbook that I created just for you!

I started my blog, Making Sense of Cents, in August of 2011 and have built a great business.

It allowed me and my husband to leave the day jobs we disliked to pursue something that we loved.

Now, we travel full-time, make a great living (last month we made over $100,000 blogging), have a flexible schedule, have more time to spend with loved ones, and we are able to retire early.

In this free workbook, you’ll receive printables such as:

Start a Blog Checklist – This checklist will help you lay out your ideas and give you a list of things to get started on.
New Blog Post Steps – This sheet will help you think of new content to write, as well as the checklist to remember for each blog post you publish.
Daily or Weekly Blog Planner – This will help you lay out the tasks you need to do each day or week for your blog.
Blog Stats – This page will allow you to visualize and keep track of your blog stats over the year.
Monthly Goals – This part of the workbook will help you to better visualize your goals over the year. This is a great way to lay it all out so that you know what you are working towards!

You can download the Free Blogging Planner Workbook below.

Enjoy!

I also have a free How To Start a Blog Email Course.

I’m sure many of you are interested in starting a blog but aren’t sure where to start. There’s a lot that goes into blogging, but I make it easy with this course.

With this free email course, I will show you exactly how to create a blog, from the technical side (it’s easy – trust me!) all the way to earning your first income and attracting followers. Each day for seven days, you will receive an email in your inbox that will help you create a successful and profitable blog, all from the very beginning.

Here’s a quick outline of what you will learn in this free 7-day email course:

Day 1: Reasons you should start a blog.
Day 2: How to determine what to blog about.
Day 3: How to create your blog. In this lesson, you will learn how to start a blog on WordPress. My tutorial makes it very easy to start a blog.
Day 4: How to make money blogging.
Day 5: My tips for passive income from blogging.
Day 6: How to grow your traffic and followers.
Day 7: Miscellaneous blogging tips that will help you be successful.

You can sign up by clicking on this link, or by entering your information in the form below.

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