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6 Month Blogging Cheat Sheet

The Tips and Tricks that Will Make You Money

Work from home websites and blogs about blogging are full of huge

promises and secret tricks that will make you a blogging rockstar. The

thought of making a five-figure income in your bathrobe drives the creation

of millions of new blogs every year.

Data from website Technocrati found that 95% of those blogs don’t make it six months. Yep, 95 out of 100 blogs stop updating in just six months on the

web. Those would-be blogger millionaires realize the truth about blogging

quickly and give up before their real chance at a payday.

Before you stop reading and look for another get-rich-quick scheme, I can tell

you that you can make A LOT of money blogging. I’ve run my own blogs for

less than three years and already make well over $5,000 a month. I know

other bloggers that have run their sites for less than five years and make

from $5,000 to $10,000 and more each month.

The great thing about blogging, besides loads of money if you stick with it, is

that there is no ‘secret’. I know the people behind the huge success stories

and can tell you, they haven’t got some secret recipe or inside strategy to

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making it big. They just work hard on their blog and they have a dogged

determination not to quit.

There are two things I want you to get from this guide, two things that I can

guarantee will make you a successful (and profitable) blogger:

• While there’s no secret to blogging, it is a business. You need to learn how that business works and the things you can do to be successful.

• Successful blogging is a very long-game. The #1 key to success is just

to keep blogging. I’ve read blogs that were…I’ll just say, less than special, but make lots of money because they’ve been around for a

few years.

As I wrote that last point, something occurred to me. You wouldn’t start a new job and expect to double or triple your salary in the first year. You

wouldn’t expect to take a company from startup to world domination in six months. Why do bloggers expect instant success with a new blog?

I actually do have some good news in all of this so that you don’t think I’m a glass is half-empty kind of guy. If you can make it past six months blogging,

you will start to see huge growth in your blog and your income will jump

each month.

That’s my challenge to you. Give it at least six months, following this guide,

and you will be miles ahead of the vast majority of new bloggers. You’ll start making serious money and might even be able to start thinking about leaving

the rat-race to manage your blog full-time.

Month 1: Setting the Stage for Success

Spend your first month of blogging laying everything out, what you want to

write about and who your readers will be. Check out a few of your favorite

blogs for ideas. You can make money off of just about any idea so don’t worry about turning a profit on your blog just yet. The most important thing

is that you’ve got a passion for your blog topic, something you really enjoy talking about…because you’re going to be spending a lot of time on the subject.

Blogs and websites don’t just float around the internet until someone clicks

to the site. Each site is stored on computer hardware called a server which

delivers the information when you get a visitor. Getting on a server is done

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through buying a hosting package from a provider. There are lots of

webhosts though most provide pretty much the same discounts and offers.

• Blue Host is probably the most popular webhost for new bloggers

because of its low-price offer. Packages start at just $3.95 per month

and you get a free website name along with $50 in advertising on

Bing. I started my blogs on Blue Host but have also had websites on

other hosts.

• GoDaddy is also a popular choice and offers the super-low rate of $1

per month for your first year. The starter package on GoDaddy is

capable of handling up to 25,000 visitors a month, way more than

you’ll need to get started.

If you decide to go it alone and set up your own blog, I’ve put together a 10-

page guide on how to start a blog. It will guide you through everything from

installing WordPress, the tool you use to manage your site, as well as plugins

you need and getting the perfect theme. It also goes into detail on how to

write your blog posts to get Google love for your site and taking the blog viral

with social media.

Beyond the technical side of getting ready, you’ll want to start putting together ideas and posts for your blog. You’ll need a few pages like the home

page, a blog page and maybe a page for your products. When you officially

launch your blog, you’ll want at least five to ten articles ready to go so people have something to read when they find you.

One of the most common questions I get from new bloggers is, “What do I do if I don’t feel like I’m an expert?” First off, you probably know more than you give yourself credit. If you’ve been working in the topic or if it’s been a hobby for a while, you probably already know much more than the average person.

If you really feel like you need a refresher, I’ve used Udemy online courses

and highly recommend it. Udemy is like a freelancer university where you

can get video courses in just about any topic. Courses run from $20 to $50

but the site is always running promotions and you can get most for $20 or

less.

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By the time you’re done with your first month of preparation, you’re going to be jumping at the chance to get started. You’re ready to actually start

blogging and well on your way to being successful.

Don’t miss this 57-point checklist on blogger mistakes and everything you

need to make your blog a success!

Month 2: Interviews and Guest Posts

The biggest problem with new blogs is that nobody knows about them. Sure

you’ve told all your friends and family but that’s not even a fraction of the visitors you’ll need to make money blogging. You’ll need tens of thousands of visitors to start making real money and hundreds of thousands a month to

make blogging your full-time gig.

In fact, I’d say that low traffic is the biggest reason most bloggers quit so quickly. Even on a part-time basis, you’ll still be spending at least five hours a week on your blog. Spending that kind of time to reach just few hundred

people and making almost no money is terribly disappointing.

The solution is interviews and guest posts.

Reach out to other bloggers or experts in your blog’s topic for an interview. It doesn’t have to be a Pulitzer-winning series of questions, just something that

answers a few questions that readers want to know. The beauty of

interviews is that the interviewee will help you get people to visit the blog

through social sharing on Facebook and other sites.

Guest posts are articles you write to post on someone else’s blog. I know, it sucks that you spend hours writing an article just to give it away to another

blog but it’s one of the most tried-and-true ways to get started.

Guest posts work in two ways. First, the other blogger already has a huge

audience so your article is actually getting seen by someone instead of just

sitting on your blog. Guest posts will include a link to your site so people can

click through to read your blog. That link is a power signal to Google to send

search traffic to your blog, something we’ll cover in the Month 4 section.

For guest posts:

• Reach out to bloggers in the same topic with an email

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• Provide at least two or three topics on which you might write

• Make sure you acknowledge and follow any guest posting guidelines

they have on their blog

• Guest posts should be at least 600 words and be good quality writing.

Why is anyone going to click through to your blog if the guest post

isn’t worth reading?

• Don’t promote any products in your post, just talk about a common problem or something that relates to the blog’s topic.

• Include a link back to your blog in a short biographical paragraph at

the end

Don’t worry too much about posting lots of articles to your own blog in the

first couple of months. Post once a week and try to write up at least one

guest post a week. After a few months, you’ll start seeing a lot of visitors coming to your blog and can focus more on your own articles.

Besides getting traffic from interviews and guest posts, most of your first

visitors are going to come from social media. You’re not getting any Google love just yet so you need to use Facebook, Twitter and all the rest for all their

worth.

Social media posting schedule:

• Once a day to Facebook and LinkedIn

• Four times a day (or more) to Twitter

• With each new article to StumbleUpon and Tumblr

• With each new article to Pinterest plus a sharing schedule of other

pins

Month 3: Understand How to Make Money

There are four ways you’ll make money blogging in the first year but you’ll want to use all nine strategies to make the real

money. The quick start notes below will get you

going but for just $3.99 on Amazon Kindle, you can

get everything you need to make thousands a

month.

In Make Money Blogging, I walk you through the

nine strategies bloggers are using to make as much

money as possible. Each strategy is a detailed guide

on getting started and being successful. An Amazon

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best-seller in the blogging category, it’s a must-have reference to make

money on your blog.

Advertising: This is probably going to be your first source of income because

it’s the fastest to start making money. You’ll sign up through Google Adsense and place a few ads on your site. When a reader clicks on one of the ads, you

receive a slice of the fee Google charges the advertiser. You won’t make much, maybe $1.00 per click and it generally takes about 100 visitors to get a

click. You’re likely looking at less than $10 a month just starting out but it’s better than nothing. Click through to this post for more detail on how to

setup Google Adsense on your blog as well as detail on making money

through sponsored posts.

Affiliates: These are advertising but one step beyond Google Adsense.

Whereas you get paid every time someone clicks on an Adsense ad, the

reader has to make a purchase after clicking through an affiliate ad for you to

get a commission. This means only a fraction, maybe 2% or so, of the people

that click on an affiliate link will result in you getting paid. The payouts are

much larger though, ranging from $10 to $300 for each sale. Click through to

this post for more detail on how to make money through affiliates and selling

your own products.

Sponsored Posts: These are articles that a company pays you to write and

post on your blog. It’s a pretty sweat deal considering you normally have to write stuff up for free. Of course, the company will want you to talk about

their product. You’ll earn from $100 all the way up to $500 and more for each of these, depending on how many visitors your blog gets each month.

You won’t get many offers for sponsored posts until you have some serious traffic, usually more than 10,000 visitors a month, so you probably won’t earn anything here within your first six months of blogging. It’s a pretty serious source for some bloggers though, with one blogger I know making

several thousand a month just from sponsored posts.

Own Products: This is where your real blogging payday can come in and

includes consulting, freelance writing, self-publishing and selling just about

anything. I make more than half of my blogging income through ten books

that I’ve published on Amazon and advertise through the blogs. I know

bloggers that sell quilting patterns, personal finance consulting &

worksheets, and a few that sell exercise equipment through Amazon FBA.

They all use their blog to promote their products.

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Success with blogging means using as many of these income sources as

possible. No one source is going to make you rich but you can build a good

stream of income from each fairly quickly. Relying on just one source also

means that you’ll be busted if something happens to shut down the source of

income.

Month 4: Blogging Tips and Tricks

While there’s no ‘secret’ to blogging, there are a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up that can really help you get visitors to your site. By the time you

reach your fourth month of blogging, you’re ready to refine your strategy

and start building a following.

On-page SEO – One of the easiest ways you can boost your blog on Google is

by following a few key points for on-page SEO. This is just tech jargon for the

signals you send to Google from within each article. I shared my process for

on-page SEO in this checklist.

• Start with a little keyword research, the phrase you want to show up

for when people search on Google. I usually write up a post then go

back through to find the keyword phrase that is most appropriate. I

might then adjust it for an exact phrase that gets a lot of monthly

searches but isn’t too competitive.

• You don’t need to stuff your keyword into the article but try having it

show up at least 0.5% of the text. If you use the Yoast SEO plugin, it

will tell you how many times your keyword phrase appears.

• You should have a headline sentence that sums up the article and a

few heading lines that sum up a section. Change the format of these

with your WordPress editor to H-tags, signals to Google for what the

section is about, and use your keyword phrase or a related phrase in

each.

• Include a few relevant images in the post to help break up the

monotony of reading and to provide more information. The filename

for images should include your keyword as well as the alt-tag and

description for the image.

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• Include the keyword in your article title, URL and the meta-

description as well as in the first and last paragraph of your article.

• Refer and link back to the article from other articles on your blog,

called internal linking.

Link-building: Google is ridiculously secretive about its search algorithm, the

program it uses to rank websites and articles to show up in search. One of

the few clues it has given us is that content and inbound links are the two

biggest factors in getting your website to show higher up in search. We

covered writing strong content in our post on starting a blog linked

previously. Here, I’ll give you an intro to link-building but click through to this

article for details on how to get links to your blog.

You know what a link is right? A piece of text like the underlined above that

you can click to go somewhere on the net. Those links are a sign to Google

that the linked page must be relevant for some information or keywords,

why else would it be referenced by another site or page? Get enough links to

an article or to your blog in general and you’ll zoom to the first page of Google for a ton of traffic.

There used to be all kinds of scammy, spammy ways to get links to your blog

but Google has done its best to shut them down. Try them now and you’ll do

your site more harm than good and could get locked out of Google

altogether.

The most effective link-building strategies you should try:

• Scholarships – Google loves links from .edu and .gov websites. These

institutional sites aren’t going to link to just anybody so your site

must be valuable if it’s being linked from a website with these domains. By setting up a scholarship of $500 or more, you can reach

out to colleges and get your blog linked on their financial aid page.

Make the scholarship an essay contest and you’ll also get free articles written by college students about any topic you choose. It’s going to cost you some money each year but can be well worth it through the

quality links and the free content you get.

• Skyscraper – This method takes more work than the others but really

works. Search Google for a keyword you want to rank and click

through to the top ten websites. These posts have a lot of inbound

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links and are ranked highly for a reason. Look through to see what

makes them so special in terms of depth and amount of information,

graphics or maybe some kind of offer. Your next step is to create a

post that is better than those top ten articles in every way. You’ll get inbound links to your post just by virtue of its quality but I’ll also share how to get even more links in the article linked above.

• Infographics - These used to be more effective but they still get more

links than regular text content. People are visually driven so it’s nice when you can offer them more than just words on a page. Unless you

have a good background in graphic design, I’d outsource infographic creation to someone on Fiverr or Upwork. Instead of making a whole

new post for your infographic, consider putting the data from one of

your posts that gets a lot of search traffic into a graphic. Add the

infographic to the post and republish to make it a super-post and get

a ton of links.

• Resource Pages – These can be resource posts, roundup articles

where the blogger gets input from a whole group, or any type of page

that links to many other blogs. Finding these pages is pretty easy but

a long and tedious task so it’s perfect for hiring out to a cheap freelancer. You’ll first do a Google search using operators to find the

resource pages, I detail this and more in the post linked above. You’ll do 20 searches and copy down the address of 20 websites for each

keyword you want to rank. You’ll have a list of thousands of sites that might want to link back to your article or blog, all you have to do is

click through to each to see if it’s a good fit and to find the contact info for the blog. You then reach out through an email asking the

admin to add your article to their resource page.

• Roundup Posts – This isn’t so much a one-time strategy but an

ongoing way to get lots of links to your blog. Bloggers are always

reaching out for quotes and input for their articles. Sometimes this

means quoting one or two others and sometimes it means quoting a

lot of other people. They get a lot of people helping to share their

article while the other bloggers get links back to their sites. Interact

with other bloggers through Facebook and join a few blogging group

pages relevant to your topic. When someone asks for a quote or

opinion for their article, offer more than just a sentence or two. Being

a resource with detailed info will make it more likely that your input

(and link) will show up in their post.

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Republishing: I’ve saved the best trick for last. Republishing is so easy, so

effective at boosting visitors and almost nobody does it. When you republish

a post, you change the date so that it publishes as a new post. It keeps all of

its inbound links and Google love but looks like a new article. Since part of

Google’s search algorithm includes a recency factor, it can be a real boost in your search ranking and can really improve traffic. This is my favorite

blogging trick and I highly recommend you check out the full article on

republishing for super Google search. I’ve gotten an average traffic boost of

246% to articles I’ve republished.

• Through Google analytics, find one of your posts over six months old

that is still getting good visitors. It’s likely because it has a good search ranking so boosting it a little could really send readers your

way.

• Go through the post in your WordPress editor, fixing any grammar

mistakes and updating information. Try improving your on-page SEO

by adding keywords, images or some H-tags where appropriate. You

can also add in any affiliates that are appropriate. The idea is to make

it a better article, both for readers and for the article’s SEO power. It’s very important that you don’t change the articles URL address.

• Click edit to change the date on which it was published. Change the

date for a few minutes into the future, i.e. if it’s 8:05am on 4/20/2016 then change the date to 8:08am 4/20/2016, and click publish.

Scheduling it for a future date will publish the post as new instead of

just updating it but keeping the original publication date.

• It’s important to schedule for only a few minutes into the future because all the inbound links to the post will be broken until it

publishes. If these are broken for a while, the admin on the other site

might see it and unlink your post which would decrease its search

power. By only being broken for a few minutes, nobody is going to

notice.

These three blogging tips are really where many bloggers fall short. Few

know the power of republishing, most don’t want to take the time for link-

building and many do not do on-page SEO correctly. Mastering just these

three aspects of blogging is going to put you way ahead of the blogging

masses and your effort will pay off in higher traffic and more money.

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Want the entire SEO process I use to get tens of

thousands of visitors from Google every month?

Search traffic is free and the biggest chunk of visitors

for most blogs, why not get all you can.

In Google SEO for Bloggers, I share my process for

ranking on Google from how to write posts for SEO

to getting the links that rocket your rankings. These

are the SEO tricks that even experienced bloggers

don’t know.

Month 5: Start Making Real Money

By your fifth month blogging, you should be seeing some good increases in

traffic but probably still are not making much money. This is where bloggers

lose interest and start abandoning their sites. After months of blogging and

promotion, you want to start making a little money for your efforts

otherwise it’s just not worth it.

There are two ways to really boost your blogging income and they both pay

off much faster than the traditional ways to make money off your blog. Best

yet, using these two sources below further diversifies your income so you

aren’t dependent on advertising or affiliates.

Self Publishing – This is my favorite income strategy and a natural fit for

bloggers. You’ve already got months of content on your blog, tens of thousands of words on a topic. Why not turn some of that content into a

book? Besides making more than half my income from books, it’s money I earn each month without having to do anything after putting the book

together. It’s truly passive income. I detail a winning process for self-

publishing on the blog but will outline it below.

• Plan your posting schedule around a book idea. Brainstorm the

chapters for a book and then write one chapter a week, posting it to

the blog as an article. When you’ve written all the chapters, put them together in a Word document and add some extra content. You get

content for the blog and it will start ranking in search for keywords

related to your book which will help promote it through your site

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later.

• Don’t try to be an entire publishing company. Get help editing, formatting and with the cover design from freelancers. It will save

you time and will look more professional.

• Reach out to family and friends for reviews at least a month ahead of

the book launch. These reviews are important for social proof to

convince others to buy the book. Consider writing a few guest posts

on other blogs and link back to your Amazon page or to a landing

page about the book on your blog.

• Check out the linked article above for the Amazon page details that

will set you apart and drive sales. These include optimizing for

keyword search, finding easy categories for your book and how much

to charge for your book.

• Sell your book through Kindle, paperback and as an audio version on

Audible to really boost your sales. Each format accounts for about a

third of my self-publishing income so you really can’t afford to neglect any of them.

Freelancing – I started freelancing before blogging while others I know were

blogging before they worked as a freelancer. Either way you do it, almost all

bloggers freelance their skills at some point. Not only will you become an

expert in your blog’s topic but you’ll also learn a ton about blogging in your first year. This information is valuable and can be instantly turned into a

source of income.

I have something of a love-hate relationship with freelancing. I make a lot of

money writing investment analysis for clients, way more than I do blogging,

but I’m tired of working for other people and dealing with editors. I started blogging to transition away from freelancing but it’s difficult to give up something that pays you $50+ an hour.

I’ve detailed how to start freelancing and some websites that will get you

started finding clients. You may not have a lot of time to spend freelancing

beyond the time you’re already spending blogging but having the extra source of income can really help keep you motivated to continue.

Month 6: Getting Help When You Need It

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You should be able to handle most of the work starting out but finding

quality professionals to help out will be huge as your blog grows. Your value

is in the content you write and your expertise. You could spend a few hours

learning how to do a tech task or researching link targets…or you can hire the

work out to someone with their own expertise and for a fraction of the cost

of your time. I use Fiverr and Upwork to find freelancers for the projects and

tasks below. I like Fiverr because I can try out a few freelancers for just $5

each before committing a pile of money on any one person.

Projects and Tasks I Outsource:

• All technical tasks like changing the structure of my blog, trouble-

shooting tech problems, improving load speed, programming

language tasks and pretty much anything that involves the c-panel.

I’ve learned a lot about blogging but the tech side is something I’d rather hire out and not have to worry about learning.

• Infographic design can be done inexpensively. It might take a little

time to find a quality designer that works within your price range but

it will save you loads of time if you’re not a designer yourself.

• Link-building research and a lot of other internet research tasks that

are very simple processes but take hours. Use Google Drive to share a

spreadsheet with freelancers to fill out the info you need.

• Virtual assistant is a term for an ongoing freelancer that helps you do

smaller tasks and stay organized. VAs can help sort through email,

keep track of posts and scheduling, as well as a huge list of other

roles. About the only thing you probably shouldn’t ask a VA to do is writing up your blog posts and blog commenting.

At 14 pages, this guide is a lot more than a cheat sheet but I hope the six

points above have been helpful in understanding what goes into a successful

blog. The idea isn’t so much to do each task only in the month assigned but to use the month to learn how to apply it to your blog every month

afterwards. Focusing on your monthly project will also help take some

pressure off worrying about visitor traffic to your blog. After six months, your

blog will start to see visitor traffic grow and you can focus more on the

numbers.

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There will be tests beyond the six-month point, times when you question if

blogging is worth it. Resist the urge to ‘take a break’ from blogging or to abandon your site. It’s a long game and bloggers that stick around for a couple of years are very well rewarded.