Making $1 isn’t necessarily a big deal… unless you poured your heart and soul into your work. Bloggers especially know this to be true. Here’s what to do with that dollar once you earn it and how to earn it in the first place.
Unless you are a teenager who just got your first paycheck, earning a single dollar probably doesn’t mean much. After all, you can’t even buy one item at a dollar store with a single dollar, let alone transform your entire life.
However, your first dollar might mean a lot to you if you are a blogger. Even though that dollar makes practically no difference in your finances or lifestyle, it’s no reason not to feel a swell of emotions the first time you earn money from your blog site.
It’s a good idea to celebrate that $1, even though you can do very little with it. Though much of our society is driven by rationality, emotions motivate us in a way that our thoughts never can. In other words, our emotions and feelings drive us to keep going.
If you are anything like us, the emotions you get when thinking about earning your first dollar resonates with your entire being. If you want to start a new blog, you aren’t alone if you feel this way, and you can start your journey today.
Our Blogging Journey Started as a Side-Hustle
We would hardly call ourselves bloggers. We are digital marketers by trade, and our blog started as a pastime and side-hustle. Never did we expect our hobby and pastime to turn into actual income that can support parts of our lifestyle.
We are Professional Hustlers Who Love Side Revenues
As full-time workers, many people ask us why we would spend our time working on side-hustles and running a blog. Although we do not expect to quit our job anytime soon, we love working on side-hustles. The time we commit to our blog is done willingly because it brings us so much joy.
Before we started our blogging journey, we had always invested in different side-hustles. For example, we invest in the stock market. We even took online surveys, played online games, and did other similar things to make a little bit of money on the side, even before we started college. Our long history with side-hustles has acclimated us to the idea of working on little projects for a dollar.
These little side-hustles have always brought us some satisfaction, whether it be pure entertainment or a job well done on making some extra spending money. We know we are not the only ones who feel this way, either.
Everyone loves free money. Whether the free money is paid through shopping discounts or gift cards, free money is free money (though you have to do a little bit of work for it with side-hustles).
When We Picked Up Blogging
While we were spinning our time on various little side-hustles, we started writing blogs about various topics. We didn’t spend enough time on these sites to generate a lot of traffic, keep up with the comments, or even renew the sites.
However, last year we got the motivation to start blogging for real. We wanted to start a blog about earning and saving money for interested people. Initially, we didn’t get a lot of traffic, but we kept working anyway. That work paid off because a few people were reading our blog here and there. One year later, someone went as far as to drop some positive notes in the comments section.
We found nothing more motivating than these positive comments and the prospect of new readers. After all, nothing is more motivating than when someone appreciates your work and effort.
How We Transformed Our Hobby Into Money
Whenever we noticed people were becoming interested in our blog, we decided we should check with our affiliate program Viglinks. We didn’t expect to see any money, but we were wrong. We were more than shocked to find that we had made $4.45.
Even though $4.45 is nearly nothing, we could not believe it, and we felt a surge of pure positivity and motivation to keep working. With that motivation intact, we purchased a notebook to start mapping out some future blog posts to make more money.
Don’t Wait Until You Make Money
One important part of our story is that we still worked on our blog, even when we were making next to nothing (and nothing at all in the beginning). We have found that this is unusual for bloggers. Most people don’t seriously start writing and investing in their blogs until they have already made it.
However, why should you wait until you make it to start making money in the first place? That reasoning sounds a little backward to us, as it likely does to you too. Instead, it’s smarter and more motivating to commit to your blog, even when you’re only making a dollar if anything at all.
Luckily, you don’t have to invest a fortune to create a blog that works. There are so many online sources and successful blogs that you can model your website off, allowing you to start making money for a much lower startup fee.
What Should You Do Now?
As the owner of a blog, you probably want to increase your traffic to start making money. We completely understand this desire. To capture more readers and increase traffic, we are personally going to do these three things:
- Enhance our blog site’s quality.
- Use Pinterest to generate more traffic.
- Create a social media account for the website (not personal social media accounts).
We recommend you do the same. Once you increase your traffic, you can start focusing on monetizing said traffic. When this happens, you want to create and publicize your content so the money will follow the readers.
If you don’t have a blog yet, don’t worry. You can read this step-by-step guide to start building your blog today. If you don’t have the time to read this guide thoroughly, here are the main takeaways:
- Decide on a blog topic.
- Choose your blog’s name and purchase a domain name.
- Purchase a hosting plan from Bluehost, HostGator, or some other affordable site.
- Use WordPress to run your site.
- Follow your heart when creating content.
Let’s create a plan to start monetizing real money on our blogs together. With persistence and effective planning, we will be able to make more money on our sites. Until you reach that success, keep working to make money.
Haven’t make your first blogging dollar yet? Let us know if there is anything we haven’t covered in the comments below!
