Starting to Earn $4,000/month From My Personal Blog Website
I’m not anywhere near where I want to be because I’m not working hard enough; I wanted to start kicking it up at 20fine and reach my goal, well one of my goals, by the finale of my 20-fine year, however, I didn’t maintain consistency. Now I must put in TWICE the work!
That’s how I opened a notes page entry in my planner back in May. “June action plan” titled the next section, where I began writing out a strategy to go from earning $0/month from my personal blog to earning $4,000/month from my personal blog in one year. I was really supposed to start at the beginning of my new year (I start my new years at the start of my new year – the day that marks another year on this earth for me specifically), but here I was halfway through another rotation around the sun and hadn’t done jack squat. That’s why I was thinking I’d double-up on the workload and achieve in six months what I’d originally said I’d do in a year.
Yeah, well, some more months passed and now I’m only one month out from this revolution’s end. An ELA girl, mathematics isn’t my strong suit, but I think that means I’d have to do 12x the work to make up for what I haven’t done these past 11 months.
Yeah… no.
Okay, so what your personal blog won’t bring in $4,000 January 2023, as was your original year-long goal. If you sit around twiddling your thumbs thinking about all you didn’t do, your blog won’t be bringing in $4,000/month by January 2024 either!
So, whatchu gonna do right now, sis? You go’on be mad because time is moving and you ain’t?! You go’on roll your eyes at all the hoes that got saved by their Prince Charming ballers and don’t have to make their own money? You go’on kick the ground because the Universe didn’t have a magical opportunity fall into your lap?
No, you ain’t no fool. You know being upset that your life and career isn’t going the way you may have pictured it going isn’t going to create that picture.
You gotta do the work, my baby. You gotta do the work. (It’s me talking to me, don’t ask me why I didn’t italicize all of it.)
In the month of June, I did complete half of the action plan, so I suppose that was something. I found a 30-day writing challenge to follow, giving me a prompt to write on each day and I said I’d write on it for at least 30 minutes. Simple (...probably too simple and that’s why I didn’t come anywhere near meeting my potential that month… and basically fell off after).
Related: 30 Days of Writing Prompts to Get Yourself Writing
Though some of the pieces that came out of that 30-day writing challenge are especially rich and genuine, that’s not what’s going to get me to rank higher on Google’s search engine.
Why does ranking on Google matter?
Ranking on Google matters because that’s where the vast majority of Internet users search for information. There is very, very, very little that social media can do when it comes to blog websites with written articles getting read. The bread and butter of (most likely) every income-earning blogger is thanks to ranking well on Google.
Yes, I need real humans to share my personal blog website directly with other real humans, but the powerhouse that is Google will reach readers that my friends, family and followers can’t.
No, I don’t want to sacrifice quality nor authenticity. However, it would be nice if this quality and authenticity could get in front of a larger population of people. And in order to do that, you have to feed the machine what it wants, how it wants it. Think about TikTok users that post about the same particular topic over and over and over again and their account/views undoubtedly grow; it’s because they’re feeding the TikTok algorithm. It’s similar for blog websites. The way TikTok content has to feed into the algorithm for better performance on TikTok, blog content has to feed into Google search optimization for better performance on the Internet. Have you ever noticed an account on social media whose actual content is trash, but performs well (in numbers/views)? It’s the same way in the blogsphere. There are blogs I’ve stumbled across where I wonder if the writer made it past 1st grade, but they have high numbers for website clicks. It ticks me off a bit, but I realize that even though they can’t write for sh!t, they obviously have a decent handle on search engine optimization. (Their blog content sucks, but it’s pleasing to Google’s system, so Google ranks them highly which results in more website clicks.)
I’m tired of people who suck getting ahead simply because they know how to play the system.
What do you do when you can’t beat them?
Yep, I’m going to work towards pleasing Google’s robots. There’s no way my being would let me put out trash blog content, so there won’t be any SEO keyword stuffed blog posts that are saying a bunch of nothing. It’s going to be much more difficult for me to optimize my blog website for Google’s search engine. I’d like to structure new content that’s easily recognizable by Google (and likely to be searched for on Google) while keeping my quality level of writing. Whew child… it’s sounding like work.. And not that “this doesn’t feel like work” work. It sounds like real work. But hey, it’s either put in the work, or be sitting in this same spot a month out from my next birthday broke too.
What exactly do I have to do to start earning money from my blog website?
my notes from Income School’s $0 to $4,000 per month in 1 year of blogging video on YouTube
Step 1: search analysis and identify 30 topics for niche
Low competition, 30 topics within niche, broken down into even more specific subcategories
Important: these need to be topics you can “win” (gain top spot on Google search results) early on because this builds authority for website as a whole which ends up benefiting other posts on site
Gain authority in five subcategories, starting with 3 to begin process
Structure content in a way to be picked up by Google (i.e. snippet optimization: tactic for Google to grab a few sentences from post and put it on first page of search results)
Niche: biking blogger around L.A. … possibly not the best way to summarize niche, almost sounds too narrow and too broad at the same time, but let’s continue
3 subcategories I’ll start with
Logistics of bicycle touring and commuting around L.A.
How to combat helmet hair
Hygiene
Skin protection
What to bring on a bike ride
How to carry items on a bicycle / while bike riding
Comfortable clothing for bike riding
Cute looks for bike riding
Routes and rides for bicycle riding and commuting around L.A.
Ballona Creek Bike Path
Fuel (food and drink) stops for bicycle riding and commuting around L.A.
Coffee shops along bike routes
Brunch cafes along bike routes
Bars along bike routes
Step 2: link articles of subcategories together; plan ahead which articles can link
Linking articles within website will help Google know what site it about
Keep track of when writing where I can interlink future posts from topics list
Step 3: “for this, I recommend…” set self up for affiliate marketing
Begin thinking about future monetization opportunities
5-10 products sprinkled throughout first 30 posts
Example: the protection serum that Cali-based brand sent me can be mentioned in blog post about protecting skin from sun when bike commuting
Chiiiiiiild. You see what I mean by work work now?
This is only month 1 of a 12-month plan to go from earning $0/month to $4,000/month in one year of consistent blogging as mapped by the blog experts over at Income School. I’m trying to close my eyes and blink away the year-long part of the process. Right now, it’s only one month. 4 scrawny weeks. 30 days. That’s it, T.K., that’s it. You can be consistent for a month, that’s nothing. It’s really only 5 days right in front of you, for real; we’ll worry about the next 5 after the first 5, then the next 5 after those. You can do something for 5 days. Yeah, 5 days? Piece of cake! Sit your raggedy a$$ down and do the freaking work, one day, one post at a time.
I have to create content that is Google-friendly, but I will not neglect the content that got my day 1 riders riding with me in the first place.
I will still write the spicy pieces y’all love riding with me for, such as “Only Broke Men Are Mad When Women Say They Date Rich Men” and the story about my ex-BFF, that I allowed to use and abuse me for years, saying she’s going to sue me now that I broke up with her. Y’all love the mess and I love that for you because if there’s one thing I can do, it’s tell a juicy story. If I could only write the juice or spend my time pouring out my heart on deeper emotional topics, I would. Unfortunately, there’s not enough Internet users searching “should I date a man with more money than me?” nor all that other randomness I yap about over there on my soapbox.
When I was expressing my woes, saying how I need to do something different, two of my old college mates with writing-related disciplines as well, Taylor and Crystal, both told me that they don’t want me to compromise my authenticity because that’s what makes my blog enjoyable. Taylor said, “so what about what Google wants.. your writing will eventually be seen by who it should be seen by,” and then related it to her journey on TikTok. And Crystal told me to not worry about making money from writing because that pressure may hinder the creative process, and then she related it to her commissioned artworks and such.
Though our situations are not the same, I agree with them both. The work should be the focus, not the analytics. However, I can’t continue wishing upon a star for my personal blog website to grow and I’m not even giving proven methods a go to make it grow.
Whew! 1700 words in.. on this explanation to myself alone… let’s do this tomorrow on a low competition topic within my niche, structured in a way for Google to pick up, and boom! We’re rolling, baby.
hey ! I'm a girl that rides her bike and blogs aroundLA.. oh , & people call me T.K.
— Te'Keya Krystal (@aroundLAwithTK) October 29, 2022
... thinking about my lil author blurb at the end of guest posts or writing compétions i win will be
