You’ve started a blog, written great content, engaged with readers … and now you’re making a little money at it. Congratulations!
I started blogging seriously with the aim to make a living from it, but I know plenty of bloggers—probably the majority of those making money blogging—have less clear-cut ambitions to profit.
Many money-making bloggers started simply by trying out some monetization method (an affiliate product, perhaps, or advertising) and were pleasantly surprised by the fact that it worked.
If this description fits you, although you might not be quitting your day job any time soon, you’ve at least proven that you can make money from your blog.
That’s an exciting realisation.
So exciting, in fact, that the world of pro blogging focuses heavily on the questions of how to get to that point, rather than what you might do once you reach it.
Today I want to ask that question.
You’re making money … now what?
Let’s say you’ve made your first $20. Or $200, or $2000. What will you do with that money?
Treat yourself to a movie? Celebrate with a dinner in a nice restaurant? Put it into your holiday savings account?
Or will you look at how you could invest it back into your blog, with the aim to earn more next month?
While it mightn’t sound as exciting as any of the options above, I’d encourage you to consider investing at least some of the money you make back into your blog.
How much? That’s up to you. But it might be a good idea to put a set percentage of the money you make through your blog each month aside to reinvest this way.
That percentage may change over the life of your blog, and depending on your blogging goals at a given time. But the important thing is to commit yourself to a percentage that you’ll reinvest into your blog every time you make some money from it.
How will you invest it?
When you make your first few dollars (and it might literally be a few dollars!) blogging, you’ll probably feel the excitement that, wow, blogging really does work! Your efforts have paid off and that idea you decided to try succeeded in making some money. Great!
That elation can be a great springboard for your plans to use the money you’re reinvesting into your blog.
If you made the money through careful selection of an ad network and appropriate advertisers, for example, you may decide to leverage what you’ve learned in that process—this time with some financial backing. You could:
- have a designer change your blog interface to create ad space in different places
- try different ad networks, or change your blog’s listing so that the ads shown on your site are more targeted to specific topics or keywords
- buy advertising space yourself and pay a designer to create some eye-catching ads for you
- set yourself up to sell your own advertising space, if you have a large and targeted enough audience.
Of course you’ll want to spend the money you’re investing in your blog wisely. Rather than throwing it all at a one-shot tactic, try to build on the successes you’ve already had.
You might divide up your investment between two or three different trials or test tactics, to get a sense as to what might be the best way to direct your money-making efforts in the coming weeks and months.
Or, you might decide to spend a portion of the investment on something new, dedicating the rest to building momentum with what’s already working to generate income.
This way, you reduce the risk that you’ll get zero return on the investment you’re making in your blog, and maximize your chances of developing skills in the methods that are proven to work with your blog, niche, and audience. You also have the freedom to experiment with new ideas, to see if they might work for you too.
Hopefully, you’ll maintain the same baseline income you had this month next month, and be able to grow that income with some of these new ideas you’re trying out. So next month, you might even have a little more money to invest in growing your blog—and that monthly income—even further.
How are you spending the money you make?
Investing money into your blog can be a big shift for those who have been running their blogs on blood, sweat, and tears alone—but it’s an important one.
It can help you to understand that your blog has the potential to build your income, and to think practically about the implications that could have for you. It can also drive your day-to-day blogging and open you up to new opportunities to learn and engage with blogging as a rewarding challenge.
Do you reinvest some of the money you make from blogging into your blog itself? If not, how do you spend the money you make? Share your approach in the comments.
