A question I am regularly asked is how I make money from my blog and how to find those opportunities.  Whilst I share how I find blogging opportunities in my blog post 4 ways to find paid blog opportunities, today I want to share some of my secrets of how I believe make even more money from my blog each month. 

These are the things I believe I do that help me make a consistent income from my blog.

1. Follow up

How many times do you reply to an email about an opportunity never to hear back again? If you get emails directly to your inbox every day like I do, then I bet it’s a lot.  Every time I reply to an email opportunity I am interested in, I then move the email to an ‘in progress’ email folder.  Once a week I will look through this folder to see who hasn’t replied to me in more than one week and I’ll send them a polite follow up email asking if they are still interested.  I then move the email to a ‘complete’ folder and I don’t bother them again.  If they aren’t interested then they may let me know or won’t reply.  But sometimes, they are interested and my original reply was just lost, forgotten about or they had tons of replies, but now I stand out as someone who is keen.  It’s surprising how many will actually reply if you send a polite follow up email.  I only like to do this once as I figure they’ve had my original reply and now one follow up, so that’s two chances for them to get back in touch with me.  You don’t want to keep emailing as it’s annoying and they might blacklist you!

2. Email previous contacts 

I keep a list of all contacts I’ve worked with on a spreadsheet.  I have a column for the date I Iast worked with them and the date I last contacted them.  I also have columns with their name, business name, email, type of collaboration e.g. ‘advert’ ‘product review’ and so on.  I don’t keep details of single brands as they tend to only work with bloggers once, so this is just for PR companies and agencies.  I sort the spreadsheet in date order and contact anyone I haven’t spoken to in three months.  I update the ‘last contacted’ date each time I email them.  I then colour code once I’ve contacted them – yellow for once, orange for twice and red for three times.  Once I’ve contacted them three times (once every three months) and had no reply then I won’t contact them again as they’re either not interested in working with me or they don’t work for that company anymore.

3. Be timely

I believe I get a lot of interest and repeat work because I respond to emails promptly – usually within a few hours, sometimes instant, but definitely within 24 hours.  I am also prompt with my work and turn pieces around quickly.  I don’t rush, but I love to write and can write quite quickly - as soon as I have a title then I’m off and keen to write!  I never leave work until the last minute and prefer to complete before a deadline (unless it’s a strict don’t do it until the deadline type scenario!)

4. Start another blog

I now have four blogs, well three of my own and one I’ve taken over!   I have my main blog, my husband’s website blog, my second blog that I set up almost one year ago and my third blog that is almost one month old so very new.  Setting up new blogs has allowed me to niche down on these separate blogs and to begin niching down a little more on my main blog instead of covering so many topics in one place.  It takes time to build authority and readerships on the newer blogs, but I was able to monetise my second blog after a few months and I hope to do the same with my third blog.  it also gives me back up and means I can apply for different sorts of opportunities for each blog.  It’s also meant some opportunities are relevant for all of the blogs and so I can let PRs or agencies know I have more than one blog and sometimes they want to work with all of them.

5. Have more than one niche 

So I am trying to niche down on some of my blogs, but I’ve always been a big believer in write about whatever you want and love.  I’m sure I get a lot more opportunities than some because I do cover a lot of topics, especially on this blog.  I’m trying to go more with a money angle on this blog now, but I do still love to write about other topics that fascinate me too and this opens my blog up to more opportunities.

6. Be active every day

I saw a blogger recently tweet something like ‘hey brands, I’d love to work with you, email me at *** and I’ll respond within a week or so’.  Really?!  I am active every single day checking my emails and responding.  Sometimes brands will have a deadline in the future and take a while to collate interested bloggers, but the majority in my experience are looking for bloggers NOW.  They have a deadline and want a response sharpish.  With that in mind it pays to be actively responding each day and hunting out the opportunities on Facebook, Twitter and blogging platforms daily, or at least every other day.  I check them all every single day and apply for any that interest me.  Yep there’s a lot of spam now on the Twitter feeds for example, but if I want to find the work then I have to fish through it daily to dig out the real opportunities!  Checking all the blogging Facebook groups daily is something I do too.  People often share so much advice that I can learn something new each day or even learn about a new networking group or somewhere to find paid work.

Final thoughts

Obviously you might not have time to write four blogs or you may only want to write about one very niche topic and that’s totally fine. These are the ways I believe I have been able to consistently make a full time living from my blog for 18 months and hope that it might offer you a little deeper insight into things I do, especially as I’m asked a lot.  There might be something here that helps you or you think ‘that’s a good idea, I’ll steal that’!

Happy blogging!