Hey,
Thank you for stopping by — I’m excited to welcome new readers after being featured on CNBC.
You can read the CNBC piece here — I made $40,000 a month from 3 income streams during a 4-month cruise around the world—here’s how
If this is your first visit, welcome to Making Sense of Cents!
I’ve received many questions about how I afforded our around-the-world cruise. If you want to learn how to start a blog, I offer a free How To Start A Blog course that walks you step-by-step through launching a site and beginning to monetize it.
If you’d like more detail about our trip, check out my post Around-The-World Cruise With A Kid (25+ Countries In 4 Months!).
Here are a few posts you might find useful:
- How To Start A Blog in 15 Minutes
- Affiliate Marketing Tips For Bloggers – Free eBook
- 10 Best Things I Did To Build A $5 Million Blog
- 29 Best Stay At Home Jobs (#1 Is My Full Time Job!)
- 18 Passive Income Ideas To Earn $1,000+ Each Month
If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment below or email me.
Thanks for stopping by.
– Michelle Schroeder-Gardner
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Beyond the CNBC article, many readers ask how I built a blog that has generated more than $5,000,000 over the years. I’ll summarize the key lessons I’ve learned so you can follow a clear path to start and monetize your own blog.
What began as a personal finance hobby turned into one of the most transformative projects of my life: creating a blog and learning to make money from it. Over a decade of consistent work and learning has led to more than $5,000,000 in earnings — a reality that still amazes me.
I launched Making Sense of Cents in August 2011 mainly to track my finances and pay off student loans. Back then blogging was still new to many people; monetization methods were limited compared to today. Early bloggers largely relied on display ads and sponsored posts, but now you can combine many income streams such as affiliate marketing, product sales, courses, and more. That diversity makes partially passive income realistic for bloggers who put in the work up front.
Passive income is one of the best benefits of blogging: once a post ranks or attracts ongoing traffic, it can continue earning over time while you travel or work on other projects. I began earning some income within six months of starting, and my earnings grew steadily: roughly $1,000/month in year one and about $10,000/month two years in.
Starting a blog and building it into a reliable income source requires persistence and strategy. Below are the main principles I followed and teach to others.
How I earned my first income from blogging
When I first started, I had no idea blogs could earn money. Six months after launching, a blogger friend connected me with an advertiser who paid $100 to place an ad on my site. That initial payment showed me blogging could be profitable and motivated me to learn more about monetization. After that, I researched, experimented, and scaled what worked.
Within a year I reached about $1,000/month, and two years later I was making roughly $10,000/month. Income growth continued as I expanded monetization channels, improved content quality, and focused on traffic growth.
How To Start A Blog FREE Course
If you haven’t started a blog yet and want a practical starting point, my free course How To Start A Blog delivers a daily lesson to your inbox covering the essentials of launching and monetizing a blog. The course covers:
- Day 1: Reasons to start a blog
- Day 2: How to choose a niche
- Day 3: How to create your blog on WordPress
- Day 4: Ways to monetize a blog
- Day 5: Tips for earning passive income
- Day 6: How to grow traffic and followers
- Day 7: Miscellaneous tips for success
The lessons are delivered by email so you can learn step-by-step and start building immediately.
Start with a plan for your blog
While some people launch on a whim, a plan makes growth and monetization far easier. It helps you choose a niche, set realistic goals, identify income opportunities, and create an action roadmap. I didn’t create a formal plan until four years after starting, and the growth I experienced afterward convinced me planning matters.
Key questions to guide your plan:
- What will you write about?
- How will you monetize the blog?
- How will you reach your target readers?
- What are your short- and long-term goals?
Write high-quality and engaging blog posts
Content is the foundation of any successful blog. Quality posts attract readers, keep them coming back, and create opportunities for monetization. You don’t need a formal degree to write compelling content, but you should be knowledgeable and honest. Helpful, well-researched posts build trust and authority.
Tips for strong content:
- Choose topics you’re passionate about and explain why they matter.
- Ask your audience what they want to read and expand on reader questions.
- Research facts, statistics, and trends to back up your advice.
- Be personal and authentic in posts that share your story.
- Write long, useful posts. Deeply helpful articles often perform best — aim for substance, not fluff.
- Proofread and revise. I used to read posts many times before publishing; an editor now helps maintain quality.
Network, network, network
Networking is invaluable. Connect with other bloggers, attend conferences, share peers’ content, follow niche influencers on social media, join groups, and subscribe to others’ newsletters. Treat bloggers as collaborators, not just competitors. Networking helped me land my first advertiser and has provided ongoing support, ideas, and partnerships.
Be prepared to put in a lot of hard work
Starting is easy; growing and monetizing require consistent effort. You’ll need to design your site, create content, build an audience, learn monetization strategies, and constantly improve. In the early days I spent over 10 hours a week; while working full-time, I put in 40–50 hours a week on top of my job. Now that I blog full-time, workload varies widely, but dedication is essential.
How to monetize a blog: 4 different ways
Common monetization methods include:
- Affiliate marketing
- Advertisements and sponsorships
- Display advertising
- Creating and selling your own products (courses, eBooks, memberships, physical goods)
You can use one or many of these methods. I prefer a diversified approach.
1. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful methods because you can recommend products you trust and earn commissions when readers purchase through your links. It can be passive: an evergreen review can keep generating income for years as long as people find and click the links.
Affiliate tips:
- Use link-shortening tools or plugins to make affiliate links look clean and trustworthy.
- Provide honest, thorough reviews and disclose affiliate relationships.
- Ask for higher commission rates if your performance justifies it.
- Build a relationship with affiliate managers to access coupons or special offers.
- Create tutorials that show readers how to use the product.
- Don’t overstuff posts with links — include them purposefully at the beginning, middle, and end.
I teach affiliate strategies in my Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course.
2. Advertisements and sponsorships
Sponsorships and direct advertising were among the earliest monetization routes I used. This involves partnering with companies to create sponsored content, reviews, or social posts. If you want to scale sponsored income, consider courses or resources focused on sponsored post strategies.
3. Display advertising
Display advertising (ad networks) is an easy way to earn passive income based on pageviews. Ads appear automatically when you join a network, and revenue generally correlates with traffic volume. Popular networks include AdSense, MediaVine, and AdThrive. I use AdThrive for my site and keep ads purposeful so they don’t overwhelm readers.
4. Sell your own products
Selling your own products — courses, coaching, eBooks, printables, memberships, physical goods — gives you control and high earning potential. I launched my first product about five years after starting the blog: a course on affiliate marketing. I wish I had created it sooner, as it became an excellent and scalable income stream.
Have an email list
An email list is one of the most important assets for a blogger. I waited years to start mine and consider that a major mistake. Your email list is yours — not subject to social platform algorithms — and is one of the most effective ways to promote products and build loyal readers.
Reasons to prioritize email:
- Your newsletter is owned by you and reaches subscribers directly.
- Email converts well for affiliate promotions and product launches.
- Subscribers tend to be loyal and engaged.
- Email platforms let you automate courses, lead magnets, and sequences to onboard new readers.
Attract readers
You don’t need millions of pageviews to earn a good living. Success depends on your niche, monetization mix, and how well you serve your audience. Focus on building a loyal readership and delivering helpful content.
Ways to grow readership:
- Write high-quality, helpful articles consistently.
- Be active on social platforms that suit your niche (Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook).
- Publish regularly — at least once a week is a good benchmark.
- Guest post to reach new audiences.
- Make sharing easy with visible social icons and properly formatted share metadata.
- Craft compelling titles — tools like headline analyzers can help.
- Use SEO strategies to attract organic search traffic.
- Keep a clean, user-friendly site design.
For traffic growth, I recommend resources such as Traffic Transformation, which outlines actionable strategies to increase pageviews.
Grow through SEO
SEO (search engine optimization) drives organic traffic from search engines. Learning SEO helps your articles appear in search results and brings long-term, passive traffic. There are many SEO resources and courses that teach keyword research, on-page optimization, and backlink strategies — all essential for sustainable growth.
Common questions about how to monetize a blog
Below are answers to frequent questions about starting and monetizing a blog, including views needed, how beginners make money, why bloggers fail, and posting frequency.
How many views do you need to monetize a blog?
There’s no single number. Earnings depend on monetization methods, niche, email list size, audience engagement, and site quality. Some blogs monetize well with 10,000 monthly pageviews; others require 100,000+ depending on strategy.
How do beginner bloggers make money?
Beginners can start with display ads, affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and selling small digital products. Display ads are often easiest to implement, but they generally pay less initially. Combining methods usually yields better results.
How many posts should I have before I launch my blog?
Launch as soon as you have one quality post and a basic design. Building an excessive backlog can delay your start and slow momentum.
How many times a week should I post on my blog?
Publishing consistently matters. Aim for at least one helpful post per week. More content can increase traffic opportunities, but quality should never be sacrificed for quantity.
Why do bloggers fail?
Common reasons include:
- Giving up too soon — blogging takes time to pay off.
- Inconsistent publishing — irregular content slows growth.
- Not investing time to learn — there’s a learning curve for traffic, monetization, and content strategy.
- Not owning your domain or self-hosting — using a self-hosted WordPress site gives you control and credibility.
Blogging is a business: treat it like one, keep learning, and stay persistent.
How do I start a blog?
If you want more detailed guidance on starting a blog — choosing a name, designing the site, understanding timelines for earnings, and how blogs make money — check out my comprehensive post about what a blog is and how blogs earn income. If you still have questions after that, please leave a comment.
Thanks for reading!