As someone who’s been blogging since 2009, I can say it’s one of my favorite side hustles, and I’ve certainly learned a lot about it during that time.
For one, I’ve found the writing to be a great creative outlet and a powerful medium to reach a wide audience. (Although the podcast has grown much faster.)
But it was a loooooong time before my blog made any real money, and one of the mistakes I made was not having a focus. I would write about whatever came into my head; current events, our travels, our dog, and occasionally I might throw in something about business or marketing.
There was no coherent theme or really any reason for someone to stick around unless they were interested in me personally. In 2013, I narrowed the focus of my writing to be about side businesses, and that’s when the site traffic started to grow.
If you want to start a blog of your own, check out my free 6-part video tutorial series that walks you through:
I had a lot of fun creating the free “how to start a blog” course and hope you enjoy it too!
Whether you already have a blog or are looking to start one, here are some of the best blogging-related articles and podcast episodes from the archives:
Enjoy!
You’ve got less than 3 seconds to make a first impression online.
Is your website turning would-be customers away without you even knowing it?
Your site and the words you use — your copy — could either be making you money or costing you big time.
Brett Lindenberg is the founder of FoodTruckEmpire.com. A part-time blog that generates $60k a year with just 15 or so hours a week time investment.
Why did Brett start a blog about the food trucking industry?
“I started the blog at a time in my life when I was looking at just a whole bunch of different business ideas,” Brett said.
“Go big or go home, that’s kinda my whole philosophy with SEO,” Matt said.
And his results speak for themselves.
It’s been more than 200 episodes since I last spoke with Matt Giovanisci. Back then, Matt was explaining how he was growing his authority site SwimUniversity.com with epic content and strong SEO.
Could a part-time blog really bring in that kind of cash? Rosemarie swears she only works 20 hours a week!
Yes, The Busy Budgeter is back for her 3rd round on The Side Hustle Show, and it’s a good one.
Since we last spoke, she started posting consistent $100k months from her blog, so of course I had to invite her back to hear what changed.
If you guessed creating her own products and driving paid traffic, you’d be the big winner.
You might know Michelle Schroeder-Gardner from her super-popular blog MakingSenseofCents.com where she gets hundreds of thousands of readers and makes 6-figures a month.
The bulk of her revenue comes from affiliate marketing, and Michelle now has a course explaining exactly how you too can build a profitable blog at MakingSenseofAffiliateMarketing.com.
Would you trade $1000 for $2000? How about $10,000 for $18,000?
If you’re anything like me, I’ll make those trades all day long!
Well, Deacon Hayes is doing exactly that every month through his blog, Facebook ads, and affiliate marketing.
If you’ve been by SideHustleNation.com lately you might have noticed the site just got a long overdue facelift. This is the 3rd major redesign of the site and the first since January 2014. I remember that date because I worked on it over the holidays and wanted to get it done before heading off to … Read more
Ben Foley started writing about how to use mindfulness to reduce stress and anxiety at FullyRichLife.com a little over 6 months ago.
Since then, his little side project has generated over 6000 email subscribers and $10,000 in revenue.
His secret sauce?
Tapping into the big audience of readers on Medium.com.
Today’s contribution comes from Grace Moser, who, together with her husband Silas, took action on one Side Hustle Show episode in a big way.
In this post, she shares their incredible results and best-practices from starting a blog from scratch in late 2015, and turning it into a 5-figure a month income stream today! Wow!
Last summer when I interviewed Neil Patel, one of the traffic hacks he recommended during the podcast was to make strategic updates to your existing content based on data from Google Search Console.
Several months later, I finally decided to give it a shot.
In this post, I’ll show you how it works, how you can do the same for your website, and my results so you can judge if it’s worth your time.