Oh, how I wish I’d known that making money as a newbie blogger is possible back in the days! Harder, yes, but still possible.

I spent my first year blogging doing almost nothing. Except for sharing content from time to time. And even if I was regularly posting, it would still lead me nowhere because I wasn’t promoting it or looking for collaboration opportunities.

• The perfect blogging schedule for success

I thought I should wait for the traffic to go higher before I pitch to any brands or affiliate programs. I also waited for them to ask me and that’s when I made the biggest mistake of my life.

Just a quick stop! How do you feel about this deal? You can get 86 eBooks, eCourses, and printables on how to start (and grow) an email list, monetize your blog, make eye-popping graphics, handle technical and legal challenges, and so much more for 98% off! Learn more here:

The biggest mistake that I made.

If you still haven’t stepped into the blogging world, then check out this post to learn how to start a money-making blog in little time (step-by-step method).

Now, about that mistake. I was still an inactive blogger at my sixth month of blogging when suddenly…

One day, I woke up to an email with a paid collaboration opportunity inside. I accepted, wrote a post for the brand and earned my first $50. That opportunity, however, was not good for my business.

Why?

See, there are a couple of things full-time bloggers all have in common and one of those is: they speak with a tone that represents their brand and who they are to a unique audience that follows a story.

After you brand your business, you spend nights looking at your analytics and going through human psychology books to find who your target audience is.

Then you create content exclusively for them.

BUT…

I was afraid to narrow down to a smaller targeting, I was afraid to brand myself so I could speak through their hearts. And I was afraid to sell stuff.

And yet, only after applying all of that, the spark finally started to awaken.

So, remember this!

You’re capable of achieving anything if you believe in yourself and start correctly. So be sure to download my free guide that will show you how to perfectly brand your business!

With that said, let me teach you the secret of making money with a blog that’s not older than 6 months!

Five ways of making money as a newbie blogger.

1 Affiliate marketing.

2 Sponsored posts.

3 Selling your products.

4 Guest posting.

5 Ads.

As a beginner, you might feel confused over the list I made, but no worries! I’ll explain thoroughly how to act with each of the ways mentioned to bring your blog to the next level, and ultimately, to be your full-time job.

Grab a drink with me and let’s begin!

If you’re confused right here, then you haven’t heard about affiliate marketing yet?! And if not, then you’ve never tried it. If you’ve never tried it, then you’ve probably lost many $$$ too!

Oh boy!

But. What’s affiliate marketing, are you yelling at me?!

Affiliate marketing is simply promoting products you trust and love by posting your affiliate link on your social media profiles and your blog. To do so, you have to either ask the brand to work for them as their affiliate partner or get an opportunity to accept.

Sounds magical, right? Anyways, it has its secrets and a huge list of traps. One of the most common is the following one.

As a newbie in a blogging world, you might fall into the trap of promoting too many stuff. But you don’t want to look spammy promoting everything you have a chance. You want to build trust talking about the tested products that are in your niche instead.

This is the course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing that taught me almost everything I know about this method. Michelle, the creator makes over $50.000 with affiliate marketing per month and she teaches us how to get to that number ourselves too! Highly recommended!

To help you out, here’s the list of thee affiliate programs new bloggers can join that are suitable for any niche.

Amazon Associates

Awin

ShareASale

This is where you’ll probably have to contact brands yourself, but don’t feel discouraged to do so even with a small blog!

Brands who want to support new bloggers truly have their reasons and this is the biggest one: They are new on the market and haven’t got much money to pay for: photographs of their products, reviews and models.

You, as a new blogger, happen to be the one to provide them high-quality (of course, you want to pay attention to that) services they are looking for.

Depending on what you’re capable of giving and their idea, they might pay you, send you a free product, or use your photographs/reviews on their page. Either way, it’s a win for everyone.

These are the best two networks you can join to find sponsored opportunities as a newbie.

Acorn

Blog Meets Brand

You would probably want to try out the first two ways mentioned above first since they are the easiest. However, this is something you have to consider doing, if not now, soon enough!

Digital products list is huge and it varies according to your blog’s niche. Ebooks, online courses, printables, stock photos, templates, WordPress Themes, patterns!

Most of them require you to have somewhat knowledge in graphic design (or web design if you decide to create WordPress themes). You’d maybe want to create and sell courses on a certain topic(s) as well.

I’d suggest you create printables, templates and similar in Canva since it’s beginner-fiendly and easy to use and courses on Teachable. You can also publish both e=books and paperbooks on Amazon here.

A great opportunity to make money and get noticed as a newbie! Many well-known blogs are looking for talented people like yourself to make their blogs richer in content.

They either expanded their business to a much higher level (meaning, opened another website or selling courses and doing live workshops, started a podcast, created a fashion line etc) or want to relax a bit more because let’s say, they now have a family.

So they’re gladly hiring others to guest post, aka write for them, on their blog. When you run to an opportunity like this one, make sure to secure yourself.

Only accept and offer to guest post for those who’d state your name, put a link to your blog, and, if possible, a recognisable picture of you. This way you can help yourself out a lot faster!

People who love your work there will probably become your blog’s customers and subscribers. Places where you can do it:

Cracked $100

Listverse $100

Penny Horder $75

As you noticed it well, I don’t run ads on my website for three reasons. Aesthetics, I don’t want my readers to lose focus on the content, ads could slow the site down.

However, I must admit, ads are one of the easiest ways to make money (though not that much) if you devote enough time to get traffic to your website.

I know everyone suggests to go with Google Adsense, but it’s the one to slow your website. So if you ask me, don’t go for ads until you have that amount of traffic that Mediavine accepts you.

Make money blogging as a complete newbie!

So, to make money blogging as a complete newbie does seem confusing but it ain’t hard. To summon up with this post, you have to create a consistent brand first, then promote your content on Pinterest a lot and stay consistent.

Definitely not an overnight process, but it’s worth all the learning and all the investments. Give it a go and spread the world around the globe! 🙂