362: Get Paid to Answer Questions: How I Make $20,000 a Month Online
Can you really get paid to answer questions?
That’s exactly what Debbie Gartner from TheFlooringGirl.com does – and her answers are earning her $20,000 a month.
Blogging
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.
How to Start a Blog
If you want to start a blog of your own, check out my free 6-part video tutorial series that walks you through:
- 4 reasons to consider blogging as a side hustle.
- Why a “blog” is probably a bad name.
- 8 ways blogs and websites make money.
- How to pick a topic for your blog.
- How to choose a domain name and get your site online.
- How to install WordPress and begin creating.
I had a lot of fun creating the free “how to start a blog” course and hope you enjoy it too!
Greatest Hits
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:
- Building a Blog to $20k a Month and Beyond
- What Happens When You Post “Epic” Content? My Traffic, Income, and Subscriber Results
- Quora for Bloggers: How to Accelerate Your Authority, Audience Growth, and Traffic
- The $7620 Blog Post (Plus, my First Real Facebook Ads Experiment)
- How to Write Viral Content – Without Actually Writing It
- Blogging vs. Podcasting: A 1-Year Case Study
- The Fastest and Cheapest Way to Build a Great-Looking Website for your Side Hustle Service [Case Study]
The Best Blogging Podcast
I compiled a binge-worthy selection of blogging podcast episodes from The Side Hustle Show into this playlist. I think you’ll like it!
Enjoy!
353: Small Blog, Big Income: Recurring Revenue from a Low-Traffic Site
Note: Click here to download Carol’s top tips for starting and growing a paid membership community from this episode. A small blog doesn’t have to mean a small income. By helping a specific group of people solve their problems, Carol Tice has attracted more than 1500 members — at $25 a month — to join … Read more
ActiveCampaign Review and Demo: The Best Marketing Automation Tool for You?
Now that I’ve been an ActiveCampaign customer for over a year, I wanted to share a review of my experience so far.
In this post, I’ll go through why I made the change from AWeber, and in-depth look at the pros and cons of Active Campaign.
333: The Raw Truth About Blogging – How a “Dog Mom” Built her Online Business on the Side
Kimberly Gauthier has been running KeepTheTailWagging.com since 2011, but things really started to take off when she niched down her focus to raw feeding for dogs.
Raw feeding is basically the paleo diet for dogs — attempting to mimic their ancestral diet.
Her blog had than 2 million page views last year — almost entirely from organic search in Google, and she’s monetized the traffic with a few different income streams.
331: A Look Inside a 6-Figure Online Business: Traffic, Monetization, and More
A few years ago, a side hustler named Brock McGoff reached out to me with a guest post pitch.
The post detailed how he was making, at that time, $4,000 a month, from his blog about men’s fashion, on the side from his day job.
Since then, Brock has turned TheModestMan.com into his full-time focus, into a 6-figure income, and into a media empire that expands well beyond the blog itself.
325: The Million Dollar Hobby: Monetize What You’re Already Interested In
Marc Andre made over $1.1 million dollars from his photography hobby.
But what’s interesting is that he never got paid to take pictures, he never sold any of his photos, and he never held any photography workshops.
So, what did he do instead?
5 of the Most Popular Side Hustles — And What to Do Instead
As side hustles become more popular — and perhaps necessary — let’s take a look at some of the common options … and what you might consider doing instead.
318: Pinterest Marketing for 2019 and Beyond: How to Get More Traffic
With 250 million active users Pinterest is a social media platform every blogger and business owner should be spending some time on.
I’ve been using the Pinterest tactics shared on this podcast in late 2015 by Rosemarie Groner and they’ve proven to be extremely effective … for a while.
313: Making Money in Your Sleep – By Blogging About Sleep
“Everyone needs it, people tend not to get enough of it – so that’s how the site came about,” said Kieran.
Kieran MacRae is talking about sleep.
The site he started is called TheDozyOwl.co.uk, a UK-based site that Kieran has taken from $0 to $2.5k a month in revenue in its 12 months.
304: The $5k a Month Part-Time Girl Scout Blog
Jodi Carlson has been running her blog LeaderConnectingLeaders.com part-time since 2014 and has slowly built it up to $5-6k a month in revenue.
The earnings come from a combination of mostly digital product sales, as well as advertising, and affiliate relationships.
The surprising thing – to me at least – is that she’s done this in a niche that theoretically doesn’t have any money.
