Blog Archives - Page 3 of 30 - Making Sense Of Cents

How I Reached 70,000 Page Views On My Blog In Only 7 Months With Zero Experience (And Make $2,200 A Month!)

Last Updated: July 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 25 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.

Here’s how a reader, Lisa, started a new blog and in just 7 months already has over 140,000 social media followers and sees over 70,000 page views each month. Enjoy!

Building a website and driving traffic to it is no walk in the park, especially for people with no experience. There is an endless amount of information to learn, skills to adopt, and creative strategies to uphold.

I am Lisa from The Financial Cookbook. I am here today to share how I drove 70,000 pageviews to my blog in only 7 months with zero experience, while also working a full time job.

I am sharing the exact steps I took to reach that milestone, what helped me along the way, and what I recommend in terms of the most value for your time.

Related content:

[Read more…]

10 Best Reasons To Start A Blog in 2023– Start Yours Now!

Last Updated: June 4, 2023 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 5 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 thinking about starting a blog? If so, this article is full of great reasons to start a blog in 2023!

Whenever I talk to people who are interested in blogging, one of the main things that stops them is whether or not it’s a good time to start a blog.

My response is – yes, I definitely think it’s a great time to start a blog!

I personally know several people who have recently started their blogs and have seen great success. In fact, I know of quite a few bloggers who have grown their blogs much bigger than mine in just the past year or so.

So, if you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, I recommend hopping on it.

Luckily, there are many reasons to start a blog. First of all, starting a blog is very affordable! You can also start a blog on the side to see if you like it. The commitment is quite small in the beginning, and that’s why I always recommend simply starting one if it’s been on your mind.

After all, you won’t know unless you try.

I still remember the early days right after I started Making Sense of Cents.

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

My reasons to start a blog were simply to keep track of my own personal finance journey. That’s it! Most people in my life didn’t even know I had a blog (I think only my husband and my sister knew).

It’s so funny to think back to when I first started Making Sense of Cents, but I’m so glad I gave blogging a chance. I can’t imagine how different my life would be if I had listened to the people who said it was too late to start a blog.

Because of how blogging changed my life, I love telling others about it. That’s exactly what I’m doing today if you are on the fence about starting a blog.

Blogging allowed me to pay off my student loans, quit my day job, travel full-time, and more. And, I enjoy what I do each day. [Read more…]

15+ Deals For Bloggers And Those Starting A Work From Home Business

Last Updated: November 14, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 1 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.

These deals are now over, but I have other content you may be interested in:

If you are looking for freebies, I have listed free courses and resources below:

Enjoy!

How I’ve Made $80,000 Selling Blogs

Last Updated: June 4, 2023 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.

Hello! Here’s a great article from Dale. Dale has made $80,000 selling blogs. Today, she is going to talk about how much you can sell a blog for, the best ways to make money blogging, where to sell a blog, and more. Enjoy!

Hi, I’m Dale, and I’m the founder of Blogging Her Way. I started blogging over four years ago as a way to get clients for my web design business.

Pretty soon, I realized I enjoyed the blogging side of things a lot more than web design!

I enjoyed blogging so much that I started and sold four additional blogs on the side over the course of three years. While I enjoyed what I wrote about on Blogging Her Way, I wanted to have an outlet to write about other topics I was interested in too.

So I started blogs in the travel, lifestyle, and college niches. I was able to successfully monetize and sell all four blogs that I started, earning over $80,000 between selling the blogs and what I earned from them before I sold them.

Here’s a look at the blogs I started and sold:

Blog A: Sold for $4,000 profit, earned $5,600 total from blog (lifestyle)
Blog B: Sold for $1,800 profit, earned $2,450 total from blog (travel)
Blog C: Sold for $17,600 profit, earned $27,250 total from blog (college)
Blog D: Sold for $18,250 profit, earned $44,500 total from blog (travel)

I did all of this working very part-time on my blogs. I would estimate that I never spent more than 5-10 hours a week working on the blogs that I sold.

For most of the blogs, I only actively worked on them for two to six months.

Selling blogs can be a great side hustle or a way to add an additional source of income to your current blogging business.

If you’re interested in learning how to make money selling blogs, read on for my best tips! [Read more…]

How My Blog Made $59,977 in Affiliate Income In One Year

Last Updated: July 18, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 5 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 Jorden Makelle, owner of Writing Revolt. Jorden is a student of my Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course, and today Jorden is going to share how she made $59,977.50 through affiliate marketing on her blog in one year. If you do not have a blog yet, I recommend joining my free How To Start A Blog course. Enjoy!

When I started my blog in late 2015, I barely knew what affiliate marketing was.

But when I learned that I could help my audience and create an extra income stream for myself just by promoting products I already used and loved, I realized…

It was a win-win situation!

So, I went all in.

These days, I’m able to bring in a steady revenue stream from affiliate marketing. In fact, my affiliate marketing efforts in one year – from July 2019 to July 2020 – resulted in about $59,000 in revenue.

Just as important, my audience is able to benefit from my recommendations, and I get to watch them succeed with the help of the same awesome products I’ve used to grow my business over the years!

Now, if you’re reading this as a beginner blogger, you may be wondering:

“How large of an audience do I need to achieve this?”

…And you’ll be relieved to know that you don’t need massive monthly traffic numbers or a huge audience to succeed.

During the year I made about $59,000 with affiliate marketing, my total blog pageviews were only around 30,000 to 40,000 per month! I’m living proof that you can succeed with a smaller audience.

What you do need is to follow the step-by-step process I’m outlining in this blog post, and with some focused time and effort, you’ll find you can achieve affiliate marketing success too! [Read more…]

Lasso Plugin Review – How To Make More Affiliate Income

Last Updated: July 10, 2022 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.

The below Lasso Plugin Review is a partnership with Lasso. All opinions are 100% my own in this Lasso review. Enjoy!

UPDATE March 17, 2022: I had a very annoying glitch here on Making Sense of Cents happen recently which has taken many, many hours to fix. When I disabled the Lasso plugin, the issue stopped. I have contacted Lasso about this issue but have not heard back. I can’t 100% say that this issue is related to Lasso, but I have not heard from them yet. Until this is fixed, I would be careful about using the Lasso plugin.

UPDATE April 25, 2022: I still have not heard back.

UPDATE July 10, 2022: I just wanted to share one final update – I still have not heard back from Lasso about this issue.

Back in 2016, I launched my affiliate marketing for bloggers course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. As an affiliate marketing expert, I have received many questions about the best WordPress plugin for affiliate marketing management.

Over the years, I’ve always gone for simplicity and simply used PrettyLinks. But, now, there are so many more robust options that have proven to be much more effective and helpful so that you can make more money blogging.

Due to that, I am trying out a new option that I’ve heard great things about – Lasso.

Whether you are looking for something else to try, or if you’re a new blogger, Lasso is a popular affiliate marketing plugin for bloggers.

Lasso is a WordPress plugin that helps affiliate marketers boost through click-through-rate and simplifies affiliate link management.

I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’ve waited so long to try something new, especially as someone who runs an affiliate marketing course.

But, I’m excited to see how this will help conversion rates and improve Making Sense of Cents and my blogging business.

Today, I will be talking about what Lasso is, the valuable features that are included, the price, and my overall thoughts on this affiliate marketing WordPress plugin. [Read more…]

How I grew my blog to 100,000 monthly page views in 8 months

Last Updated: June 4, 2023 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 15 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 a reader, Madeline, on how she grew her blog to 100,000 monthly pageviews. Enjoy!

Is blogging really worth it? Can you actually make good money blogging? Can you get lots of pageviews without paying for ads?

These are all questions I used to search on Google a few years ago, in my attempt to grow that successful blog I had been dreaming of.

Hi, I’m Madeline, a toddler mum based in the UK, and I run the blog CappuccinoandFashion.com. I write about blogging strategies and social media tips on my blog, as well as fashion inspiration on my Instagram page.

I never knew blogging could be a full-time job when I first started. I simply had a passion for it and I really loved reading other people’s blogs, so I decided to give it a go myself.

I started my blog over 8 years ago as a simple hobby and back then it was more of a personal style diary type of blog. Needless to say, it didn’t really grow at first at all because I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t really know about any strategies that would get me traffic or rank my posts in Google search. [Read more…]