Can You Make Money in Your First Month Blogging?

Written by Jeff Campbell in Blogging Last Updated January 19, 2024

Whenever a blogger starts a blog, one of the first things that come to mind is making money. But should that be the focus at the start? And can you make money in your first month blogging?

As a general rule, bloggers do not make money in the first month of blogging as having visitors to the site is needed to generate income, and that often takes 6-8 months. However, that can be sped up by incorporating a successful Pinterest and/or YouTube strategy to drive social traffic to the site.

So blogging is a long game, not a get-rich-quick strategy.

But I’m NOT saying it is impossible to earn in the first month of blogging. However, there are several factors needed to make it happen. So continue reading till the end to discover more on this topic!

Why Making Money in Your First Month of Blogging Is Tough

Whenever you think about earning money through blogging, do you know the very first thing you need? TRAFFIC!

And do you know how long it takes to get traffic to a new blog?

As a general rule of thumb, it takes at least three to six months to start getting significant traffic to your blog from the search engines. Also, that can be too early to expect.

Several factors can determine when you can expect traffic growth in your blog.

Usually, it is recommended not to think about earning from the blog in the first 6-12 months because you won’t be getting significant traffic to your blog in this period.

In the first few months of blogging, here’s what you will have to do:

  • Setting up your blog by purchasing a domain, hosting, and completing everything necessary. (You can also read my complete guide to building a website from scratch)
  • Write as many quality articles as possible of at least 1,300 words each (minimum 2 per week).
  • Don’t focus on monetization until you get at least 5,000 visitors a month (some programs will cancel you after 60-90 days without a sale)
  • Add a Pinterest business account if you are in a food niche, mommy blog niche, or relationship tips type niche (this can significantly speed up getting traffic with the right Pinterest strategy)

Doing all these tasks in the first month of blogging can be hard, especially if you have just stepped into this blogging field.

And let’s suppose that you manage to do all the above-mentioned basic blogging tasks within one month. But then also,

“Whatever you do, unless you have traffic, you won’t be earning any money in the first month of your blog!”

It takes time for the search engines to trust your blog and rank it on the SERPs! One month is too early to expect any significant traffic to your blog. And no traffic means no money!

Do you have some earning target like $500 per month from your blog?

If so, I highly recommend you check out my recent article, where I dive right into the exact things I would do if I were new again, and that was my goal.

These days I make 5-figures a month (and you can too), but I remember the days just a couple of years ago when I would have loved $500/month.

Just click that link to read it on my site.

Wait, do these all boil down to the fact that you can’t make money in your first month of blogging? Absolutely not! There are ways which I will be discussing with you now.

How Can You Make Money in Your First Month of Blogging?

Before starting, first, let’s have a look at all the basic ways of earning through your blog:

  1. Monetizing Through Display Ads
  2. Earning Through Affiliate Marketing
  3. Selling Info Products (like eBooks, Courses)

Of course, there are other ways like lead gen but let’s consider the above-mentioned basic stuff. The following are some ways you can make money in the first month of your blogging.

#1. Utilize the Audience You Already Have and Direct it to Your Blog

As highlighted, you need traffic, which means having an audience to earn money through a blog.

Relying on search engines to rank your blog and get organic traffic can take time and cross the timeframe of earning in the first month.

However, the shortcut to this is directing an audience you already have towards your blog and earning from them.

If the audience you direct to your blog is quality traffic who can engage with your blog’s content, then that can send good signals to the search engines. This, in turn, can benefit your rankings on the SERPs.

Where can you have that audience? 

Well, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, you name it! Although out of all the social media platforms, YouTube will be the best option in general.

It will be easier for you to drive traffic to your blog if you already have a decent amount of subscribers on your YouTube channel.

To give you an example, let’s say that you decide to start a blog in the home niche. And you already have a popular YouTube channel in this niche with a decent number of subscribers.

So what you can do in such a scenario is you can write listicle type of posts – some tips-type posts related to your niche. Then you can make a corresponding video for it.

For example, if you write a post on something sharing 21 tips, you can make a video by using only 11 tips. And then, inside the video, you can have a strong “Call To Action” for your audience to visit that blog post and read the remaining tips.

This way, you will not only be able to make engaging short videos on your YouTube channel. But also, you will help your audience by providing them with extra resources. In return, you can get a traffic boost on your blog.

Plus, if your content is powerful, your audience can share that post on other social media channels, and soon you can start getting traffic to that post.

You can give a link to the video description so that users can easily visit the post. Or, you can also encourage the viewers to view your blog post directly.

I know all these might sound cool!

But remember, here are the three factors needed to make this thing happen:

  1. Powerful And Solid Content
  2. Highly Engaged Group of Subscribers and Viewers
  3. Enticing content so that the viewers can get encouraged to read the post

Remember, you will have to keep that subtle hunger for more content within your audience while making the video. And you can satisfy that need by encouraging the audience to read the post.

If you already have powerful video content covering almost everything in the video, the viewer might not be interested much in your written blog post content. So I hope you are getting my point.

Likewise, you can also use your other social media channels like Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram, where you already have some pool of followers.

In short, by this approach, instead of driving traffic from Google and waiting till they trust your blog, you utilize the audience sources you already have with you.

#2. Do Aggressive Affiliate Marketing on Your Blog

Once you get the audience to your blog, your next goal is to promote highly relevant affiliate products to them.

See, although you can earn money through display ads, chances are, in the very first month, you may not get accepted for them.

However, with affiliate marketing, that’s not the case. As long as you can generate three or more affiliate sales (especially with Amazon Affiliates), you can start earning anytime.

You will have to promote the right kind of affiliate product to the right audience; that’s it! And go for stuff (especially in video) that you own, use, and like (and show you using it). That builds a LOT of trust that you aren’t just recommending stuff to get a commission.

So, for example, if you have a tech YouTube channel and accompanying blog with it, you can make a product review video.

You can also write a helpful blog post about that product and its comparison with other products. Then, you can give a call to action to your audience to read that blog post for more info.

When the viewer reads the blog post, if they feel your post is genuine, they will most likely click your affiliate link to purchase that product. Thus, you can generate affiliate sales and earnings in return!

However, remember not to be too spammy. You also need to write informational-type articles on your blog and not just product reviews.

And while Amazon is the easiest way to get started, it doesn’t pay great (3-4% commission). So don’t lock yourself into that exclusively.

If the #1 seller of products in your niche is another company, just search for “company name + affiliate program”. Chances are, they have a program (often through a large affiliate network like CJ, Share a Sale, or Impact.)

Just sign up for the program, and once approved, start adding links where relevant in your blog posts.

#3. Sell Info Products Like eBooks or Courses

You can make an eBook or handbook related to the niche. You can then use your social media channel to drive traffic to the sales page of your blog.

And not only the eBook, but you can also sell video courses, audio recordings, any spreadsheet tool, and anything that would be helpful for your audience.

And the great thing about this method is apart from the cost of taxation and the hosting platform of the info product, all the money you make through generating the sales will be yours. Plus, you don’t even need any timing or threshold.

As long as you can get eyeballs to your sales page, you can start earning money.

Now, there can be other ways like link building, buying an expired domain, and ranking your blog faster. However, whatever is the case, trying to bring traffic to your blog will generally take longer than one month.

Plus, link building and using expired domains are not something you should jump on if you have just started blogging. Nowadays, Google has turned out very smart! You can’t achieve long-term growth by gaming their systems.

And still, even if you strongly believe in building links and all that stuff, it is not recommended to go that route unless you are an experienced blogger and you know what you are doing.

Final Thoughts

In short, the simple answer to the question of earning money in the first month of blogging is NO (unless you already have an established audience somewhere else, you can direct them to your website).

However, if you have the required blogging experience and if you can drive traffic to your blog directly using social media channels, then you can monetize that audience and start earning money. You can promote affiliate products or sell info products to that audience. That’s it!

Do you believe in earning a full-time income through blogging? Well, I’m the live proof of it. You can check out my income reports.

My advice would be to invest in a good blogging course like Project 24 by Income School to speed up the learning curve, acquire all the necessary skills, trust the process, have patience and keep grinding!

Project24 is what took my monthly blogging income from $4,000 to $30,000 in under 2 years (that’s why it’s called Project24 – replace your job income in 24 months).

And I’m still a member of it today and highly recommend that.

Just CLICK HERE to check out Project 24 on the Income School website and see if it’s right for you.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

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