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Are you wondering how Michelle Schroeder-Gardner from Making Sense of Cents makes money blogging? Michelle is an incredibly successful personal finance blogger at Making Sense of Cents which makes $50,000/month from affiliate marketing. Her blog has also won blog of the year awards as the best personal finance blog, and she’s been featured in Huffington Post and Business Insider. To find out how Michelle makes money, I interviewed her and asked her “How do you make money as a mom blogger?”.
So, in this post, you’re not only going to find out how Michelle from Making Sense of Cents makes money blogging but also how affiliate marketing works, and how you can get started making money blogging.
Did you know…?
Michelle has a background as a financial analyst and initially started her blog to make some extra money to pay off her student loan debt. She had no idea that this would be the beginning of her dream life… And with that, let’s jump in.
Hey, Michelle! I am so excited to chat with you. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us what made you decide to start a blog?
I started Making Sense of Cents back in 2011 as a way to simply journey my personal finance progress, as well as just to have a writing outlet. I did not know that blogs could make money or really anything about blogs back then. In August of 2011, when I opened my laptop and started this blog, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t even know that blogs could make money.
I simply started just for fun after I came across other personal finance blogs. Eventually, I started making money on Making Sense of Cents and decided to leave my day job in order to become a full-time blogger. I have been blogging full-time on Making Sense of Cents since 2013.
What’s your number one tip on how to make money as a mom blogger?
My top tip to make money as a blogger is to diversify your income streams.
I recommend looking into:
- Affiliate marketing
- Sponsored partnerships
- Display advertising
- Creating your own products
- and more in order to make money blogging.
Diversifying your income streams is great because you will then not be reliant on one form of income, and can withstand fluctuations in your income from month to month.
How can your online course Making Sense Of Affiliate Marketing help mom bloggers make money blogging?
Affiliate marketing is my favorite way to make money blogging. If you are looking to make money blogging, then I highly recommend learning more about affiliate marketing in my blogging course. In my course, I teach bloggers:
- What exactly is affiliate marketing
- How to find affiliate products and services to promote
- How to build trust with your readers
- The different strategies to use (how one post made $500,000 alone)
- and more.
Affiliate marketing is not as easy as just throwing affiliate links around on your blog posts. Instead, there are things you can learn to make it easier for yourself and better for your readers. This can help you to increase your conversions and actually help your readers.
Check out Michelle’s course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing here! You can also read my honest review about the course and how it helped me make my first 5 affiliate sales in 3 days.
What was the one thing you did that started to move the traffic needle for your blog?
Being active on social media and creating an email list. When I first started my blog, I didn’t do much to promote my blog posts. I spent a lot of time writing content, but I did almost nothing to share my actual blog posts. Once I changed that, I was able to grow my page views (as well as my income and affiliate income). I started a Pinterest account, Facebook page, an email list, and more.
“Focus on people and the money will come” Do you think that is true for building a successful blog? And what would your advice be to focus on instead other than making money, to make money?
Yes, I definitely think this is true. As a blogger, your reader is very important. Focusing on your readers is how you will grow your blog, as well as get your existing readers to come back to your website to read more. You can do this by creating high-quality content, writing content that your readers have personally told you that you want to read, replying to comments on your blog posts as well as emails, and more.
What’s one “silly” mistake you made that would be hugely beneficial for new mom bloggers to avoid?
I started on Blogger/Blogspot. I highly recommend starting on self-hosted WordPress and owning your domain name from the very beginning, especially if you’re planning to monetize your blog.
What advice would you give yourself if you were starting all over? What would you do differently?
One thing I would do differently is I would start my email list on Day 1. Instead, I waited a few years to start my email list, which is probably thousands and thousands of email subscribers that I lost by not doing so.
What’s your proudest achievement as a new “mommy” blogger?
Blogging while having a baby is definitely a lot of work and the biggest challenge! Being able to do anything that involves my blogging business while taking care of Marlowe is an achievement, haha.
What are you currently working on and how we can connect with you?
I’m currently simply working on Making Sense of Cents, and trying to get ahead in writing content as much as I can. You can connect with me at Making Sense of Cents and on Instagram.
Income reports
If you would like to learn more, here are Michelle’s income reports, which provide a detailed look at how Michelle, founder of Making Sense of Cents, generates income.
Her income reports are pretty mindblowing and one of the reasons why got into blogging.
Here are some more fun stats about Michelle of Making Sense of Cents:
- Her first blog post was published on August 10, 2011. You can read it here.
- She has published 2,072 articles on Making Sense of Cents.
- She has received 134,434 emails (Michelle says: “This does not even include the countless emails I have deleted over the years, so the number is probably over 1 million, haha!”). She hasn’t included promotional emails either – the 134,434 are simply emails from her readers.
- She has 67,410 comments on my blog posts. This was higher but she recently deleted over 5,000 comments that had broken links.
- She’s personally replied to over 21,488 comments.
- It took her six months to earn her first $100 from Making Sense of Cents.
Write as you talk
From speaking with Michelle on other occasions, I know that she greatly values writing in the same language she uses when speaking. And maybe that’s one of the reasons why so hundreds of thousands of monthly readers flock to her blog. Because she breaks down complicated topics like early retirement, additional income, and student debt in an easy-to-understand language. Instead of using language that’s hard to understand Michelle likes to write as if she was talking to a friend.
According to Michelle’s blog, when you teach in a simple language, people are more likely to understand.
You don’t need a huge social media following to make money
The best thing about blogging is that how much money you make doesn’t depend on how many social media channels you have.
Michelle only uses social channels she feels comfortable in and makes enough money every month blogging.
For example, Michelle only runs her blog, an email list, a Facebook page where she shares her latest posts (containing her affiliate links), and a Pinterest profile.
She doesn’t have a YouTube channel, creates YouTube videos, or works with online influencers.
Besides that, she runs a private Facebook group for members of Michelle’s course where she teaches how she makes $50,000/mo with affiliate marketing. Click on the link if you’re interested to learn more.
To make money, as a new blogger you can pick any traffic sources that suit you the best.
How you do want to promote your blog posts?
In order to monetize their blog posts, most affiliate marketers have their preferred channel.
So if you’re planning to make money from your blog, it’s a great idea to think about which social media accounts you would like to use to promote your content to your new readers.
For example, do you want to use a social media post, or do you feel comfortable doing YouTube videos? Do you love using Instagram or Pinterest stories?
Next, you want to look up successful bloggers in your niche and see how they do it.
For example, if you love using Pinterest, check out The Fast Track Girl who publishes a new Pinterest story each day.
Make money with affiliate marketing
In the interview, Michelle revealed that one of her favorite ways to make money from her blog is through affiliate marketing.
If you’re looking for more information, I highly recommend you check out her course because it’s what I used to finally make money from my blog.
You can also download her free 36-page step-by-step guide here that teaches you everything about how to get started with affiliate marketing.
What is affiliate marketing and how does it work?
Affiliate marketing is when you promote products and services to your audience that you already use and love. For every sale you refer, you’ll receive a small commission. However, some affiliate programs pay out much larger commissions.
Also, check out my other two posts:
- Affiliate Marketing for Beginner Mom Bloggers: The Best Step by Step Guide and
- How To Do Affiliate Marketing Without Followers: 8 Surprising Ways for Stay at Home Moms To Make Money.
The great news is that you can do affiliate marketing even as a new blogger. That’s why it is a popular online business.
Top piece of advice for new bloggers
Another great tip Michelle offers is to create as much content as you can in advance. Michelle and her husband used to live in an RV before living on a boat. The couple now lives on a big boat full-time with their daughter. Michelle writes as many blog posts in advance as possible so that she never falls behind on her content schedule during hurricane season or while at sea due to a flaky internet connection.
How to prepare your blog for a rainy day
The beauty of blogging is that you’re your own boss and can work on your own schedule. That also means there are different things you can do to prepare your blog for a rainy day.
Think about how many pieces of content you need to create in advance to feel perfectly comfortable in case life throws a curve ball at you. 1 or 2 or 10?
If you do a little work upfront, it can also help you maintain a healthy work-life balance, as you won’t have to worry about your blog when the kids get sick or you have an unexpected appointment.
Whatever your financial situation you’re looking to turn around, blogging is hard work. BUT making a monthly income from it is definitely possible. It might take some time before you can quit your full-time job and blog full-time. Blogging can provide you with an income to live a great life, where ever you are.
- The best thing about a blog is that you can work on a flexible schedule that fits around you, like Michelle, for example, who lives and works from her sailboat with her husband full time.
- How much time you work depends on how many hours you want to work.
- You don’t need much experience in the topics you want to write about to get started but you should work towards becoming an expert at it over time.
- If you’re new to blogging or affiliate marketing check out Michelle Schroeder-Gardner’s course. This online course teaches you the strategies she used to get started with affiliate marketing.
How to get started
If you’re planning to start your own blog it is a good idea to make a business plan and get clear on who your audience is you’re trying to help, what problem are you solving and how are you planning to monetize your blog.
Next, you’ll need hosting. I recommend Bluehost (which is also what Michelle uses) because they are the cheapest and have the best customer support. You should definitely check out my free tutorial here that walks you through every step of how to set up your blog. By the time you’re done reading this post, you’ll have your blog ready and set up. Promise!
How to monetize your blog
After setting up your blog and creating content, you still have plenty of time to finalize your monetization strategy. You might discover that affiliate marketing and display advertising are the income sources you solely want to focus on. And if you have already started then simply think about which ways to make money inspire you the most and just try them out.
Example of how to monetize your blog easily
Let’s say, for example, you talk about how you paid off your student loans and helped your family become debt free within a certain amount of time. You can then easily monetize your blog posts by recommending the financial products you used to help you pay off your student loans quicker or the online courses you took and the books you read. Here’s a great personal finance book to help you become debt free I can recommend! You could even work with brands providing financial services and write sponsored blog posts for your audience.
YouTube videos are a great way to get your affiliate links in front of your audience. Just take a look at mom blogger and entrepreneur Angela Braniff and how creative she uses the description box below each video to encourage people to click on her link which increases her sales and conversions.
This gets us to the end of this post.
Summary
As you can see from Michelle’s blog, achieving financial independence through blogging is possible. And there are different ways for a brand new blogger to make passive income.
So whether you’re thinking about starting your own personal finance website or talking about your personal finance journey blogging can be a great way to turn your passion into a full-time career. The first place is to decide whether blogging is right for you and then jump in and get started.
Over to you, are you feeling inspired to start your own blog and make money from it? What has been the biggest takeaway for you? Or what are your current struggles starting your own blog? I’d love to hear from you in the comments
I’m Kristin Brause, a new mom and now a blogger. But please call me Kris! My blog AnyMommyCanMakeMoney was born out of my desire to stay at home with my baby and work from home instead of being away from her for work. My mission now is to help mommies who also want to stay at home with their kids make money online because I believe that any mommy can work from home and make money, even between nap times and nappy changes, with the right strategies. Check out my resources to help you make money.
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