This week is the anniversary of me setting up my blog for commercial use. At the end of May 2021 I changed the web address to '.blog' and paid the membership fee in order that I could begin using plugins and adding logos to my main page and side bars. Now, after a year, I am just settling in and making a steady side hustle income but I feel like I have so much to learn.

Blogging is a fun way to offload your thoughts and make a little extra cash. Love of writing has to come first as financially there are no guarantees.

What is my favourite way to earn money from my blog?

Let me be honest with you. I never expected to give up my day job to become a full time blogger. I had already had a free blog before all this, where I used to occasionally share a book review or poem. However, when I signed on for a business membership at Wordpress, I was hoping to generate a bit of cash to help fund my home improvements.

Be prepared to play the long game.

I am going to talk about using advertising and affiliate links another time as for me, the most beneficial revenue source is influencer networks. Getting sponsored to write posts has become a regular thing for my website and has become a dependable earner for me.

I am a bit picky.

So when I started to look for websites that provide a link between writers and companies interested in sponsorship, I began by using GetBlogged. Although this has ample opportunities, you needed to have a blog DA of 20 and mine was 19 so I wasn't eligible for most of the posts. I did get a small job which involved writing a 500 word article for £25. A few months later, I still have not picked up another offer.

This year I discovered some influencer apps which enable you to attach your blog, instagram, twitter etc and offer writing services of bid for sponsorships. They enable you to pitch why you think your blog fits their article and the companies get to check out your previous work and decided whether or not to give you each gig.

These have become my go-to choice for raising extra income. At my level, I tend to go for the $100 posts which involve writing between 500 and 800 words and providing between one and three links to their websites.

I only pitch for topics that I can relate to.

There are so many opportunities but I have decided to be true to myself and only apply for those which I have some personal experience in. For instance, I was asked to write about debt management and I have been in debt before so I felt able to reflect on my journey to burying that debt. However, if I were asked to write about crypto currentcy I would have no genuine knowlegde of this subject. Although I do have a few crypto shares, I have no idea what it is or how it works so I would be writing about something that I don't fully understand.

Sponsored posts are my favourite income source

For me, I am enjoying accepting a sponsored blog post every week or so for one hundred dollars each and am being quite selective about the ones that I choose to do. Last month I took five posts, making me $500 in total and the offers keep on coming.

This is no get-rich quick scheme as I had to build up my blog for nine months before I was eligible for sponsored posts. In a future article I will discuss my other income stream, Ezoic adverts.

If you want to join Medium as a paid member (and why wouldn't you?) please use my joining link.