How to Make Your First $1,000 a Month Online by Blogging (True Story)

If you start your blog tomorrow, on day one you will make $0. On day 2, you'll probably make $0. You're not going to make a ton of money out of the gate.

That's why not everyone is earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year blogging. It takes time, energy, perseverance, patience, and even trial and error at times. It's not easy.

So how much do beginner bloggers make? Once you get to that 3-6 month mark, you could start to earn some decent money. Like $500-$1,000 a month (this was my experience). Then, if you keep ramping, you can earn more than that.

You want to learn how to make $1000 a month? What does it take in terms of eyeballs on your site to earn that amount of money?

In other words, how many blog views do you need to make money each month?

There's a ton of variables that go into this (which you'll learn later on in this post), but if you choose a high-paying blog topic and solely earn an income via Google ads, then you could earn $20-$30 per thousand visitors (FYI, you won't see these dollar amounts initially, but they should increase over time, especially if you partner with full-service ad teams likeMediavine).

If you want to earn $1000 a month blogging, then you'd need to attract approximately 40,000 visitors a month with the above example. But thankfully (again, as you'll learn later in this post), you could earn more than $20-$30 per visitor with great content. AND, you could earn more with affiliate marketing and by selling courses.

So, do you NEED to have 40,000 visitors a month to earn $1,000? No way!

You could have just 1,000 visitors, but sell 10 courses at $100 a pop each month! It's totally possible! But, now at least you know the range of what's needed...and what's possible. You now have the introductory numbers of how to make $1000 a month blogging!

What if you stick with your blog, ramp it up, and start earning a decent income? How much is that? How much do successful bloggers make? I'd say that if you figure out how to make $1000 a month blogging, you're a successful blogger. After all, $1,000 a month is an extra $12,000 a year! That's a pretty increase to your household income!

So let's say that's your target. Your goal if you will. You want to figure out how to make $1000 a month blogging so that you can...

• pay off your debt

• build up an emergency fund

• invest for your future retirement

• or maybe just take a nice vacation for once in your life!!

Whatever your goal is, you think you can get there via blogging (heck, I did, so I bet you can too!!).

So how do you earn an extra grand a month blogging? How much do bloggers make per post? And how does that equate to monthly earnings?

I calculated this just the other day. If I sit down and write a solid post that's set up for SEO, I'll likely earn between $200-$500 per post. Is this the case for everyone? No.Everyone will have a different experience with this.

• Some bloggers might write a post and earn nothing.

• Others can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars from that one magical post.

I consider myself a moderately successful blogger, so I believe my earnings results of $200-$500 per post is more of an average and likely attainable for anyone.

How Much Money Do I Earn Per Post With My Blog?

So how did I figure that out? How do I know how much money I earn from each post per year? Here are the knowns:

• I write about finance. It's one of the best paid blog niches out there. Because of this, I can earn $30 per thousand viewers, which is fantastic.

• If I focus on my post structure and do everything I can to rank well in search engines, I can expect to get 20-50 viewers per day on that post.

If I have 20 views per day, that equates to roughly 7,500 views per year. At $30 per thousand views, that's $225 that I'm earning per year on that post.

If my post does well, it might yield 50 viewers a day. That's roughly 18,000 viewers per year. Again, at $30 per thousand visitors, that's $540 per year for that post.

How Much Do Bloggers Make Per Post With Affiliate Marketing or Course Sales?

This is the ultimate question, and one that I'll dig into later in this post. How can you earn evenmore per post?

Most of the time, I'm writing articles just to provide great information to my readers. I'm not thinking about how to refer them to a product that will make me money or to sell them on a course that I produced. BUT, by not taking this extra step I realize that I'm leaving a TON of money on the table.

• Let's say I develop a post that gets 50 views per day.

• And, along with that article, I develop a course that could help my reader even MORE.

• For every 1,000 viewers, I'll sell 2 courses.

• My course costs $49.

With 18,000 viewers per year, that's 36 course sales. At $49 a pop, I'll earn another $1,764.

In total, on just that one post, I could be earning over $2,300. And what if I could produce 50 posts in a year that do the same thing? We're talking about some serious money now!!

So...I've talked a bit about bloggers earning crazy money. How much is that really? $100k a year? $200k a year? No no. Think bigger. WAY BIGGER.

I know it just doesn't seem real, but some blogs can earn over $1,000,000 per year. When I first heard that figure, I was shocked! But the more I blog and the more I ramp my earnings, the more I believe it's possible.

So what about the big dogs? Who is the highest paid blogger and how much do they earn per year?

According to MoneyMint.com, the highest paid blogger is Ariana Huffington. She started Huffington Post (I'm sure you've heard of it), which earns $250 million per year.

You might be saying, "But Derek, that's not a real blog. That's a huge news website." Okay fine, let's go down the list of top blog earners. Next on the list of top bloggers is Timothysykes.com. He writes about penny stocks and earns $120 million a year. My friends in the personal finance arena are making great money too!

• Jeff Rose earns $16 million a year with his finance blog, Good Financial Cents.

• Michelle Schroeder earns $12 million a year with her finance blog, Making Sense of Cents.

It's completely crazy, but it's absolutely possible!!

WP Beginner (one of the most prominent sites in the blogging arena) suggests these 7 topics:

1. Health and Fitness

2. Personal Finance

3. Fashion

4. Lifestyle

5. Business and Marketing

6. Technology and Gaming

7. Travel

If you have a love of any of the topics above and you're itching to start a blog to make some extra money, then the stars are starting to align, my friend!

This might be your time to take the plunge and start a blog! I bet that you won't ever regret it!

1. Write about your passion - if you don't love what you're writing about, you won't write anything, or you'll write crap that no one wants to read.

2. Write amazing content that people want to read AND that's set up for SEO so people KEEP finding it for years to come...not just the few days after you post it.

3. Let other people know your blog exists by writing guest posts everywhere you can and by commenting on similar blogs as yours

4. Believe in the products you offer and offer them as help to your readers.This is where the real money is - affiliate marketing and selling your own online courses. Attract readers to your site and learn how to sell them on your product and you'll never go hungry again. ;)

5. Rinse and repeat. Don't give up.

You might be astounded how simple those steps are. But it truly is simple. Don't overcomplicate it.

• Attract readers to your site (by guest posting on other sites with a link back to yours, with commenting on other sites, and with great SEO!)

• Make the experience so great that they want to know what else you have to offer

• And, they'll likely tell their friends

Set up your site so that people will want to come back for more and you'll earn that extra grand a month with your blog. In fact, if you continually leave your readers with that feeling, you'll likely earn far more!