How to Build a Blogging Income Stream

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Can blogging be a sustainable income stream? While I have never actually had success earning blogging income, there are tons of successful entrepreneur’s who are. Many of them earning well over $100,000 per year from their blogs and websites.

Most of the focus here on The Money Sprout has always been on building a sustainable dividend income stream from stocks. And while we have had a lot of success from investing, it does take a ton of capital and waiting around to earn any significant income.

So the time has come to start “branching out” into additional income streams. The focus on The Money Sprout site has never been about earning income from it. Eventually that may change, but for now … I would prefer focusing on building an income stream from a secondary site … one that I actually started 3 years ago.

Starting June 1, 2017 – I am challenging myself for the next 12 months to focus on earning sustainable blogging income. Just like we have been earning sustainable dividend income for years … we hope to start generating significant income from blogging.

Our first challenge will be in the health and fitness niche which is already saturated for sure. However there is a ton of money being made there and I am very passionate about healthy living.

Health and Fitness Blog

One of the passions I have (other than dividend stocks and personal finance) is health and fitness. That is why I started a blog on the topic about 3 years ago.

Only problem was, I didn’t really keep up with the site all that often and would post random content every couple of months or so. I had no plan or purpose for the site really … and thus no visitors.

And with no visitors … there has been no income.

Total Earning to Date – $0

What there has been however, are expenses for the site. Hosting fee’s and blog theme fee’s make up most of the costs to date.

A few of these expenses are also tied into this site (The Money Sprout). But basically my health and fitness site has been cash flow negative since I started it.

The goal is to change that.

Here are a couple notable stats for the site as of May 31, 2017 –

  • Age of site – approximately 3 years
  • Posts – 19 existing articles
  • Pageviews – around 2,500+ the past 12 months combined
  • Highest Monthly Pageviews – 690 (January 2017)
  • Email Subscribers – 0
  • Income Earned – $0
  • Pinterest Followers – 36
  • Twitter Followers – 20

So even though I am starting this blogging income campaign with an existing site … it has very little traffic and followers.

Long Term Blogging Income Goals

At this point, I don’t have a lot of specific short term goals defined for my niche website. However, as part of publishing these updates and focusing on building a quality health and fitness blog … I will start to decide over the next month what my goals should be.

Note – I plan to provide income, traffic, and social media statistics at the end of each month for this campaign.

The one thing that I do know, is that the main purpose of growing this health and fitness blog is to generate sustainable income.

Eventually, I plan to earn enough income each month from this niche site to replace my full time income.

To make it simple … I plan to earn $5,000 per month on average from this site by June 1, 2018.

That gives me one year to grow my list of email subscribers, write awesome content, promote that content via Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram, and a whole lot more.

Blogging Income Goals – Average $5,000 in monthly profit by June 1, 2018.

Note – This $5,000 in monthly profit would be after any expenses and taxes.

I will also need to figure out the best opportunities for earning that income. There are several affiliate marketing opportunities that I know about for this niche and have started investigating them.

Other income options for this niche could include – online courses and memberships. I don’t plan to use any ads or sponsored posts at this point.

Next Steps to Grow Blogging Income

So how do I plan to make my health and fitness blog profitable by next June?

Well that is a great question and one that I don’t have all the answers to just yet. But that is why I am going through this process and sharing the details along the way.

What I do know is that I need to get busy writing more quality content that provides value to my future customers. Out of the 19 posts that have already been published, only one is of premium or “cornerstone” content in my opinion.

Two more articles are close and need to be tweaked a little. I will need to review the additional 16 posts to see if there is any value in updating those as well. I plan to look at each article in June and decide how to proceed.

Here are the tasks that I plan to complete in June. Hopefully I get a lot more done than what is on this list, but these are the minimum things I need to complete to stay on track.

  • update 2 existing articles to be considered cornerstone content
  • review remaining 16 posts and make a plan for each
  • write at least 3 new cornerstone articles of 1,500 to 2,000 words each
  • create 3 new Pinterest pin images for new and updated posts
  • create 1 new Twitter image for new and updated posts

Note – for all posts considered to be cornerstone content, I will plan to create 3 different pins for Pinterest as well as 1 new Twitter image. This includes any existing articles that may be updated.

When it comes to writing new content for this health and fitness site, I am taking a new approach compared to how I write for The Money Sprout. So rather than creating a bunch of smaller posts (under 1,000 words) and posting frequently, I am planning to post longer content (1,500 to 2,000), just not as frequent.

I think this will be a successful strategy for building a brand (and website) around health and fitness.

Conclusion

So there you have it. It is time to get serious about earning blogging income. A lot of time and effort will be required to put together quality content and build my brand … but it is worth it.

Being able to replace our full-time income with a secondary source has always been a goal of mine. While I have no plans on quitting my job anytime soon … it does give me flexibility.

Over the course of the next year, I will provide updates and statistics for this campaign. In addition, I plan to share the tools I am using to help build the blog and brand. Finally, if things I am doing are not working … then I plan to share those as well.

Do you earn sustainable blogging income? What tips and tricks can you offer for those of us just getting started?

2 Replies to “How to Build a Blogging Income Stream”

  1. What a timely post! I have been thinking about starting a blog and want to be able to monetize it immediately; I will enjoy watching your progress and how your success unfurls!

    1. @Dani – Hey thanks! Hope I can offer some good advice to you when you decide to start your blog. Best of luck.

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