Making money by blogging??

[climbing coastie]

I will be retiring next summer and just bought a van to outfit to do extended trips out of. I have a friend that is making money hand over fist with YouTube but I'm not big on being in front of a camera or video editing.

I was wondering if there was a way to make money via writing a blog? I'd start with documenting my van conversion then write about all the climbing areas that I would visit once retired. I'm not looking to make a fortune, but wouldn't mind making a few bucks for doing something I'll probably do anyway.

Any leads on how to go about this would be appreciated.

 

[WriterMs]

There are at least a few folks on this forum who make decent money on their blogs. I am not one of them (I work on m novels not my blog though I have one), but I can encourage you in that you would have two marketing niches from what you've told us here: the vandwelling/RV folks and the climbers.

There are literally dozens and dozens of interesting vandwelling/mobile living blogs. I probably have at least 20 that I check out weekly. That does not mean yours could not gain a huge following if it is written well with interesting content and updated often. I have no idea how many blogs exist for climbers, but perhaps you know if that market is saturated or not.

There are two major ways to make money from a blog that I know of:

1. Become an Affiliate on Amazon. Then if you mention a product Amazon sells and provide a link that is created via your Affiliate page, you will receive a small (quite small) percentage of the sale from Amazon. These add up as you gain followers on your blog. And you also put an Amazon search box on your blog that is tied to your Affiliate's account. If your readers go through that search box to find things they want to buy, then you again get a small percentage. It costs nothing extra for the person making the purchase (Amazon pays you the referral percentage out of their profit).

2. Allow space on our blog for advertisements. These arrangements get complicated and others here can likely explain more or you can just go to the top ad placement services and research what each has to offer. When you have a large enough "audience" the advertisers will be interested in you. When a reader clicks through on an ad on your blog, you get a tiny amount of money (that adds up with the growth of your readership).

Bob has gone through a few versions of his own blog and this forum to make them a great experience for his readers. And that means there are many of us who happily use his links or search box. Another top blogger in this niche is rvsueandcrew.net -- in May she received her 2 millionth page visit. It has been a long time since she mentioned her Amazon income but the last I can remember was around $800 on an average month.

Stay tuned.. I'm sure you'll get a lot of info here. I started out basically to say that you have at least those two markets (which is more my area of knowledge). But I'm a writer and get carried away. I suspect those who "monetize" their blogs will actually have corrections to what I've written.

 

[Suanne]

Hi Climbing Coastie,

I've been blogging for almost 6 years and just recently added some features to monetize it (last April).  My personal goal is to learn how ads work; so, I've kept it very low key on my blog.  Making money is secondary, but nice.

I use Google's Blogger for my software blogging host/platform.  Blogger (blogspot) has an integrated function that allows you to include ads (AdSense).  I also know several folks that use other blogging programs that include AdSense ads.  But, I don't know how that works from-first hand experience.  On my blog, I've inserted only one AdSense ad at the end of the post. Since I implemented on May 8th, I've earned $8.29.

I also joined the Amazon Affiliate Program (https://affiliate-program.amazon.com) and include links to products using special urls.  Members get a small percentage of sales from anyone who buys anything on amazon after clicking on those links or ads.  For my blog, I included a small widget to search for amazon products, and used the special urls to link to any products that I may be discussing.  I've earned $22.69 since April. I recently posted some product reviews from being a snowbird where I included lots of links that have the potential of generating revenue.  You may want to check that out, see useful items, power generation/storage, outdoor living.

With both AdSense and the Amazon Affiliate Program, you can put more advertisements on your blog and get more traffic to earn more money.  But, be careful not to let the ads overwhelm the blog.  The key, of course, is to have good information and content in your posts to build an interested and returning readership. 

I'm a beginner here, but I hope this information gives you a start.  And, welcome to the forum!

Suanne

 

[akrvbob]

One thing to keep in mind is you have two distinct markets, climbers and vandwellers. That gives you a big advantage over other people.

It's a lot of work!! Content is king and you have to have a product people want. You have to be very regular in posting and they all need to be interesting--or at least most of them!

You need 4 things to make it work:

1) Passion for your subject
2) Treat it like a job.
3) Some skill or the willingness to learn and get better.
4) Photography skills. The more and better your photos the more the blog will grow.

The dual subjects gives you a big head start, but you have to be careful to stay balanced and not chase away either audience.

I'd go for it but I would use wordpress.org instead of a free service.
Bob

 

[climbing coastie]

Thanks all! I had my wife help me set up a blog page lastnight. I even added a post with pictures this morning. 

Here it is: Climbingcoastie blog     Please feel free to give me honest feedback whether good or bad. 

Bob, would you go ahead and pay for the URL now, even if I don't know if I'll be able to make money on it?

 

[akrvbob]

I don't really know anything about wordpress.com to make a suggestion. The risk is that someone else will take the name but that seems unlikely.

One thing you want to do is name the blog so that the most possible people can stumble onto your blog by accident. putting climbing in your name is good but nothing about mobile living is bad. Coastie is just confusing and does harm.
Bob

 

[climbing coastie]

Thanks for the responses. I'm happy to say that I made my first bit of money off my blog. It wasn't much, but hey I've only had the blog just over a week and am still trying to figure it out. For what little I did to get it I'm happy.

Bob, I completely understand your idea about the blog name. It's just I've had this screen name on several different climbing corums for 10+ years and can't think of anything else. I'm sure if I get serious about it I may change the name or find a way that I can be included when someone searches "van conversions" or "van life/dweller".

Thanks again for the help!

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

ill give you a click, solidarity lol

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

something to consider..i went there on mobile 3g with firefox and the load time was ridonkulous. i clicked on the post https://climbingcoastie.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/starting-the-bed/ and just gave up waiting

 

[climbing coastie]

Martin,

I've had two other comments about the page not working with Firefox. Not sure what the problem is.

 

[Brian_and_Jesse]

It worked fine for me with Chrome and Windows 8. Took no time at all. Nice blog.

Brian.

 

[SoulRaven]

Martin,

I've had two other comments about the page not working with Firefox. Not sure what the problem is.

The style sheet(s) are your problem.  If I turn them off, everything comes up just fine.

 

[SoulRaven]

I don't have any blogs, even though I have been getting hounded by a lot of people for a long time to start some.

It is so easy to make money, both online and offline, that I can't imagine why it would be worth it to try and monetize a blog. If you're in need of an income, drop me a line.

 

[climbing coastie]

Off Grid,
The blog is something I have thought about doing for a while. Making money isn't the primary purpose of it. I just have several climbing trip reports that are scattered over various climbing forums and would like to consolidate them into one place for friends and family to see. With my van build out several people have shown interest in seeing its progress, friends and strangers alike.
 
I figured with me retiring next summer if there was a way for me to make a little extra money by doing something I planned on doing anyway, then why not. Like I said in my opening post, I have a friend making hand over fist with YouTube ($100,000+ a year, plus paid trips all over the world). I don’t like doing videos, but do enjoy writing about climbing and documenting my van. I'm not expecting to make a living off of it, but an extra tank of gas or new piece of climbing gear every so often would be kind of cool.
 
Thanks for the offer and will keep it in mind if I ever do need a job!

 

[NMLady]

Martin,

I've had two other comments about the page not working with Firefox. Not sure what the problem is.

I'm on my laptop, using Firefox, and your bog page is not loading. bummer.

 

[Canine]

I just went on it and it worked fine. Weird how that works!

A pretty Blog I must say. Lots of eye candy.