Making the Most 101: 8 Things You Wanted to Know About the Blog

What is a blog? According to Dictionary.com, a blog is a website containing a writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other websites. These can be personal journals open for family to read online, political articles, recipe pages, craft pages, etc. Most bloggers make use of the skills of accomplished web designers to help them with the creation or renovation of their websites. Bloggers are a good area of business for web designers and so they should consider setting up portfolios to help attract more bloggers to their services – take a look at these ux design portfolio examples to see how to effectively showcase your work.

What is Making the Most? Making the Most is a faith-based blog that seeks to encourage others in making the most of what God has given them by posting recipes, crafts, activities, and general Christian lifestyle articles.

How long have you been blogging? It depends how you look at it. I had a blog in high school (12 years ago) on a website called Digital Expressions, where I maintained the top spot for stats for quite a while. I kept that up for a few years. I also had a Xanga account (remember the days of Xanga?). This blog has only been around for 2 years.

Are you making money on it? Yes. Not enough to call it an income, but I have made a little bit of change.

How do you make money blogging? There are multiple avenues for making income from blogging.

1. Selling ad space. Sometimes I get paid when the ad shows up in my page. Sometimes I get paid if you click on an ad. This where the change comes from.
2. Affiliate links. Not always, but sometimes when I link to a product, I earn a percentage of your purchase. So when I recommend books or products, it’s possible that I am earning an income off of your purchase; however, I will never recommend anything I don’t believe in. So rest assured that anything I recommend and link to is something I truly love, believe in, and think you should have too.
3. Product testing. You can make a lot of money from testing products for different companies and quite often, bloggers like to write about their experience and whether they would recommend the product. This tweakyourbiz article goes over product testing in more detail.
4. Sponsored posts. Eventually, I will be able to do what are called sponsored posts. These can include giveaways or reviews of products or companies that are paid. Once again, I will never recommend anything I don’t believe in. I will never endorse something I myself wouldn’t use just for pay. That’s not what I’m about.
5. Direct sales. Some bloggers earn extra money by including their direct sales pages on their website. I’m all about you purchasing some Thirty-One products or Usborne books through me, but I prefer you contact me directly.
6. Selling other products online. Occasionally, you will see me advertise a product that I have listed on my Etsy shop. The majority of the time, these are digital products, and I sell them on Etsy for a small merchant fee. Not everyone is a fan of Etsy though – if that includes you, then you may want to go to this site instead. Last year I did pretty well using this avenue–this year, not so much.
7. Speaking engagements, online courses, ebooks etc. Many of you know that my primary goal is to finish my book and get involved in public speaking. Hopefully, the book will be a large source of my income next year, and as I continue speaking and promoting my content, I’m hopeful that public speaking will be another source of income for me. I’ve been looking at courses I can take to boost my skills before I begin. Find out more about Ginger Public Speaking if you’re interested as it stands out as one of the best around in my opinion. As far as how I will make money from it goes, online courses are a maybe, but I haven’t committed to any ideas for that yet.

Is there potential for more income? Absolutely! Some bloggers make into the six-figure incomes.

How do you get there? It depends on what avenue I’m using. Sometimes I earn a small income just by you visiting my page. Other times, I get paid when you click on a link. Sometimes, I will get paid when you make a purchase. It just depends; however, in order to keep my reputation I will never encourage you to click on links just to help me earn extra money. I want to click on the things you’re truly interested in and purchase only what your family will use.

How can I help? I can’t emphasize it enough: share, share, share my posts! Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook. The more you share and link to my content, the more pageviews I get. The more pageviews I get, the more people will pay to be seen on my page. Not only that, but as people learn about my blog, my hope is that they’ll want to purchase my book or ask me to speak. Your support and God’s miracles are the only way this works.

Thanks to everyone who asked questions!

If you still have comments or questions, feel free to post in the comments below or on any one of my social media pages.