How To Build A Profitable Blog In 6 Months

Asking yourself how long does it take to make money blogging? These 10 bloggers plus myself making 11 are about to weigh in! Knowing when you'll start making money online and will help to set your expectations when creating a money making blog.

How long does it take to make money online

Early this year, I used this question to remind myself that there were no shortcuts to making money blogging. Blogs that make money will take some time to build. I grew very impatient numerous times while building my blogging business so I grew curious about this topic. How long did it take others to finally start seeing good income from a blog?

Like many others, it took me a while to figure out how to make money from a blog. But now that I have repeated the process several times, I've built myself a nice little system. Let me leave you with the cliff notes in case that's why you're here.

When I just started my latest blog, I took all the below steps to ensure I would be making money blogging quickly.

Want to learn how to make money as a blogger? Take my free blogging course. This course will teach you how to set-up a blog for success and it's totally free.

Critical Beginner Steps When Blogging for Money

I followed my money-making blueprint to the tee:

I purchased WordPress hosting from Siteground. You can read more here on why it's so important to purchase WordPress hosting instead of sticking with the free WordPress website if you intend to make money with a blog.
I set up Elegant Theme Divi on my blog because it's a mobile responsive page-builder type theme that I LOVE. (Other easier to work with WordPress themes here)
I wrote blog posts with popular content that I knew would do well on Pinterest.
I created a brand new Pinterest account for the blog and set it up to deliver massive traffic to my blog.
I signed up for a free Mailerlite account so that I'd be able to capture email addresses from my lead magnet when traffic came rolling in. (Join my free 5-day email list-building course below if you need help building your list.)
I got to work pumping out more content and creating more pins as quickly as I could. I even purchased prewritten content to help me get some posts up quickly with light editing.

It worked well enough. In my first month I made almost $150 and at the end of my second month, I had amassed enough traffic to apply for an ad network that pays much better than Adsense but required a minimum of 25,000 sessions within a month.

Want this money blogging blueprint explained in detail to replicate my results? Download it below.

I was anxious to make the 4 and 5 figure mark really quickly on that blog and wondered how soon I could do it knowing what I know. So I asked a few bloggers who were making the kind of money I aspired to. Here's a summary of some things I noticed.

Why Most Bloggers Make No Money

Most bloggers don't make an income from their blog because of their content. Straight up, it sucks. I know when I first got into blogging almost 10 years ago, I just wanted a place to share my pretty outfits and the places I traveled.

I wrote stories from my perspective and my friends and family had a great time following these stories, but I had a hard time attracting anyone who didn't already know me and what I was about.

Once I shifted my focus to creating content that was more reader-centric, I began to see traction. My blog posts now are all written to help my target audience solve a problem. When your posts are written to help others, they tend to do much better than when you are the main focus of your blog posts.

I also invested heavily in learning SEO and Pinterest to increase my blog traffic and income and those investments have paid off big time. That is why the two courses I have available are in these categories. I believe they are the most critical blogging courses every new blogger should take. Check out my Pinterest eBook here and my Beginner SEO course, for my take on these two essential areas of blog traffic.

Blogging is STILL one of the best ways to make a fulltime income online. Take my free course How to Start a Profitable Blog today to learn how to create a blog that makes money from the start.

How Long Does it Take to Make Money Blogging?

I asked the question "how long does it take to make money blogging" in a Facebook group I am apart of with some of the ladies with top money-making blogs. Their answers helped to reassure me that even though I am much better equipped this time around to build a profitable blog, it still takes some amount of time to make a full-time income blogging.

So how long does it take to make money blogging? The average answer was 6 months. Most bloggers, even those who know what they're doing, reported that it took them at least 6 months of solid 40-hours/week work to start making part-time income from their blog. For full-time income, be prepared to put in at least a year's worth of work.

Here's what some of them had to say.

It took my husband and I about 6 months to start seeing any real money come in from our blog. We were a part of Google AdSense from the beginning but it didn't pay well. At about 6 months we were able to apply for Mediavine and that's when more substantial money started coming in. The majority of our income is from ads but we do make some money from affiliates and an eBook we created. I think the key for us to being able to make money has been being active on social media sites like Pinterest and Facebook. They drive the majority of our traffic to the site. We're currently working on diversifying our income streams. For anyone that is new to blogging, it can be overwhelming and you might feel like it's not going to work out. Don't give up! Hang in there and keep pushing forward with it and eventually it will work out. Everybody has a different timeline for their blog. Don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle.
livinglowkey.com

How Long Does it Take to Make Money Blogging? (10 Established Bloggers Weigh In)

My current blog started to make money in its 2nd week from a product and with under 1k pageviews.

Before I launched, I knew I wanted to start making money to cover my blogging expenses immediately so I followed the steps in a blog plan I created and also created a product I researched and felt my target audience would be interested in. The income so far has held steady.

While I made a sale from the main product page, I made a lot more through a tripwire on one of my opt-ins because it was easier to focus on promoting a freebie which gets people on your list so they can buy from you again and again, and makes you money all at once!

www.findingbalance.mom

I started making money my very 1st month of starting my blog. I knew I wanted to monetize my blog from the get go so I made the strategic plan to start on the right foot.

I invested in a few courses prior to starting the blog and implemented all the steps right away.

This included affiliate links, I created a product and worked hard on my email list.

This was almost 2 years ago! My income continues to grow each month.

ladiesmakemoney.com

I love that the ladies that made money out the gate with their blogs had a plan going in and invested in their blogs.

I was once an advocate for researching all the things for free but the reality is that that takes a lot of time to sift though all the information out there and try and test all the theories.

Investing in a blog coach and course saved me the time and headache of taking years to figure out how to make money blogging once I decided I was going to make this my full-time gig.

Struggling to monetize your blog and start earning real money from your blogging efforts? You may need to work with a coach. Instead of following an impersonal course, a coach can tell you the exact things YOU should focus on to build YOUR unique blog. Here are my blog coaching packages. Let's work together on your blog strategy so you can finally start earning income from your blog!

How fast can you make money blogging?

I made my first $100 my first month blogging. I never invested in any course other than learning to use Pinterest. But I did invest in my blog – like my theme and tailwind and that has been my biggest traffic booster! I believe having a clean and professional theme can attract visitors to your site.
www.onefinewallet.com

It took me nine months to achieve my first $2000 blogging income month with 155K pageviews. By the end of month 4 I was able to join Mediavine after having over 37K pageviews that month and my blog immediately started earning ad income which rapidly increased as my pageviews increased over time.
inspiringlifedreams.com

How to Make Money from Blogs

The recurring theme among the bloggers above includes creating solid content that brings in lots of traffic. This equals both ad dollars and affiliate income.

This is the crux of my blogging strategy as well, coupled with email marketing which helps to get repeat customers since the easiest people to sell to are those who have already bought from you or are at least familiar with you enough to hop on your email list.

Read more about email marketing here and learn all about affiliate marketing here.

How do blogs make money?

Before you develop your own blogging voice, connect with your audience and become confident enough to create your own products, ads and affiliate marketing will be the backbone of your income strategy as a blogger. This is why it's definitely worth learning as much as possible about affiliate marketing in the beginning stages of your blog.

If you're ready to invest in an affiliate marketing course, I wholeheartedly approve of this one. I've taken a couple of different affiliate marketing courses and this one was very detailed in giving solid strategies for making more sales and converting more of your traffic into income.

To make money from blogs, you need consistent detailed content that solves a problem and that enough people are searching for. Learning how to find these topics through keyword research and SEO will help you to create a blog that eventually brings in passive income.

How Much Money Do Bloggers Make?

From the above examples you'll see that you can expect to make a blogging income of around $1500 – $2000 per month after putting in 6 months to a year of solid work creating quality content and driving traffic to these posts.

Lots of bloggers go on to make much more than this once they've set a rhythm and have found their footing as a blogger. This is usually around the time that bloggers diversify their income streams and start offering different services and ways to create income via blogging.

The 6 main ways that a blogger makes money include:

Ads
Affiliate marketing
Freelancing as writers, graphic designers, virtual assistants etc
Selling ebooks, courses, printables and other digital products
Selling physical products
Offering coaching or other similar services

Read more about these ways that bloggers make money here.

How Do You Start a Profitable Blog?

Hopefully you've read this and you're motivated to start your own blog or to finally stop hobby-blogging and to take your blog to the next level.

The first step in making money with a blog for beginners is getting your blog hosting and setting up your blog with this tutorial.

This guide below will give you the steps to take to create a profitable blog and make money within that 6-month timeline.