Make Money Blogging: Blog and Retire Case Study

How to Blog for Money... Eventually

If you're just joining us for the first time, the Blog and Retire Case Study is me building a successful blog from the ground up following the steps in the Blog and Retire eCourse. If you haven't already, you should go sign up to get Week 1 free in your inbox today and get started on your journey toward a money making blog. It is the most extensive course online that will teach you, holding your hand the entire way, how to build a successful blog and earn an income from it. Don't just take my word for it. Check out this recent testimonial:

If you're new here, first read The Birth of the Blog and Retire Case Study so you can catch up on things.

What I Did This Week

This week the ecourse goes into creating a free product, ebook, or service, and then creating something you will have for sale for your readers/subscribers.

It is your choice what you want to do with your blogging business and you do not have to have anything to offer your readers besides your blog posts. Creating an ebook, product, or service (depending on what your niche/topic is) is just another way to create an income stream from your blog.

For now, I personally don't feel that my case study blog is going in the direction of offering products on anything, so during the time that is assigned to work on the ebook or product, etc, I am simply going to keep writing blog posts and generating traffic on the blog.

I also give a brief introduction to email autoresponder services. I already have an autoresponder account at MailChimp*, so I also didn't have to worry about that. I think I may eventually create a monthly DIY newsletter that my house blog readers can sign up for in the future and get in their email inbox, but for now I'm just going to stick with blogging and traffic.

*If you sign up with MailChimp through my affiliate link and become a paid customer, you get $30 of monkey rewards to go toward sending your autoresponder emails, and I also get $30 of monkey rewards, so everyone wins!

So here is a list of things I did for my case study blog this week:

Wrote blog posts (trying to keep it as entertaining as possible, even though I tend to write blog posts at the end of the night when I'm burnt out from the day).

Scheduled Tweets. You need to offer value to your Twitter followers, and you also need to let your Twitter followers know that you posted a new blog post.

Facebook. Updated my Facebook Page and my Facebook Status updates with new blog post links.

Followed more people on Twitter (therefore I got more followers because people followed me back). About 5 different days this week, I followed about 40 people and unfollowed 20 of those who have not followed me back for awhile. (Gotta make room for more receptive people).

Interacted with people on Twitter (you can see my interactions by looking at my Twitter profile: http://www.twitter.com/1house1couple).

I tell you how to become a master of Twitter in my Ultimate Twitter Guide which you can get access to simply by clicking the Like button at http://www.facebook.com/blogandretire <-- do it now so you can get more traffic from Twitter.

I commented on blogs of those who commented on mine, and on new blogs I found through my new followers. Also, I follow them through any means possible. I follow their blogs through Google Friend Connect and Networked Blogs, and I Like their Facebook page. I also tell them that I did so and ask them to return the favor on my blog. Networked Blogs is a tough one because not as many people have a Networked Blogs account, even though it's super easy to get one. Just go to Networkedblogs.com and click to login with your Facebook account. It's a good idea to do join NetworkedBlogs if you have a blog - More backlinks, anyone?

If you're on Networked Blogs, do me a favor right now and click the "Follow" button in my Networked Blogs box in the right sidebar! Thanks in advance! :) -->

Interacting with other bloggers and your Twitter followers is crucial to your success in blogging. I spend more time doing this than anything. If I build rapport with people, people will come to my blog even if my blog posts are top notch every time. Not that you should slack off with your blog posts; always try to write your best. However, if you ever do have to slack off on a blog post here or there (because your schedule is so busy or you're dealing with a personal crisis), if you've kept your relationships going with your readers and followers, they will come. That is the magic of online relationships.

Case Study Blog Stats:

Unique Visitors

Unique Visitors in January so far: 476 besides today and yesterday (average of 47 unique visitors coming per day).

To compare that with December: 930 for the entire month (average of 30 unique visitors per day).

So right now we're on track to getting about 1475 unique visitors for the month of January. Let's see if we hit the mark.

Pageviews

January so far: 2357 pageviews (that weren't my own) - averaging 235 pageviews per day.

Compare that to pageviews in December that weren't my own: 8055 - 259 pageviews per day.

So I'm getting more unique visitors so far this month, but less pageviews. This simply means more people are coming, but each person is not looking at as many pages as they did last month. I am curious about how this number will turn out by the end of this month.

Twitter

This week: Tweets: 846, Following: 473, Followers: 302, and I'm now on 4 lists.

Compare to last week: Tweets: 667, Following: 454, Followers: 263, on 2 people's lists

That looks like an improvement to me.

Facebook

32 people like 1house1couple on Facebook.

Mentions on other Blogs

My house blog has been mentioned on 4 different blogs by other bloggers in the home/family/DIY niche (that I know of, so there could possibly be more).

How to Monetize Your Blog

You can start by putting adsense on your blog right away if you wish. It's up to you.

You can also promote affiliate products through your blog posts. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has guidelines you must follow if you are promoting affiliate products. Always make sure you make your readers aware that you promote affiliate products and that you could earn commissions from helping sell those products. It can be as simple as putting somewhere on your blog: "Disclaimer: Compensated Affiliate". Or you can be more like a human and say something like, "Disclaimer: I sell affiliate products on this blog and I may earn commission if you buy something. Yay!"

Once you get a good flow of traffic to your site, you can even sell ad space. You can start this at any time, but obviously the more traffic you have, the more money you can charge.

Here is a great article that gives 3 examples of blog stats and how that translates into advertising revenue. Even though this article is about Mom Blogs, you'll pretty much get the same results in any niche. However, don't close your mind off to the idea that you could make more. It really just depends on how much advertisers are willing to spend.

Here is another very extensive article that outlines what you need to know about advertising on your blog.

I personally am not going to think about generating revenue from the case study blog until I have more traffic. So far it seems that it won't take too long to get a good amount of people to my house blog if I just keep doing what I've been doing.

The good thing is that the numbers are going up and I have to say it is all thanks to the techniques I've outlined in the Blog and Retire eCourse.

So easy, a caveman could do it!

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