Hey mamas!

If you have read my blog before, then you know that blogging is now my full-time career.  A few years back I decided to put all my other home business ventures aside and focus completely on my blog. It was a risky move, but one I made with hope and excitement. If you’ve never read my blog before and this is your first time here, then welcome!

So a lot of people wonder how I am able to stay home and still earn a living. I may not be making multiple figures (yet), but  I do earn a small amount of income from my blog with the potential for more in the future.  I also occasionally receive products to try, test and review, which is something that I love! So if you are a newbie blogger, interested in starting a blog or if you’re just curious, then stick around while I break it all down for you.

How I Make Money And Receive Products As A Blogger

If you’re not familiar with the word monetize, then I suggest you learn all about it now, as that’s how it all works. If you want to earn an income from your blog then it needs to be monetized. What does that mean exactly? Well simply put, it means that you set up your blog with ads, using services such as Google AdSense, or other similar programs. Your blog will have to be owned for this, meaning you paid for your domain and site through a company such as SiteGround.  I receive a small amount of every sale purchased through the ads on my site, so when you click them, I get paid for that.

Affiliates

So one of the first things I did was to set up my site with ads as well as apply for several affiliate programs.  Now with affiliate programs, I get to personally choose the ads you see displayed on my site.  I either find companies and brands I want to work with and apply to be an affiliate or, they find me and send me an offer to become one of their affiliates.

I really love working as an affiliate because I get to share awesome stuff I love with all of you! The affiliate ads and links I share and use work basically the same way as the regular ads displayed here on my site. When a reader (like you) clicks on them and shops or signs up, I get a tiny percentage of that sale.

Sponsored Posts

The main way I earn income from my blog is by doing sponsored posts. What does that mean? It means a company or individual pays me a small fee for writing a post centered around their product or service. So sometimes I will get a free product to sample, and then write a blog post about the product and then I will get paid after the post has been published.

I also do contributor posts which means that freelance writers, other bloggers or publishing companies will write a post that they think would work well on my site, and they will pay me to publish it on my site for them.  I do those quite often and it’s such a win-win!

Influencer Posts

I’m sure in this day and age you know all about virtual influencers. They are all over Instagram, Youtube and well, just about everywhere else.  It’s a rising and ever-growing medium that works wonders for everyone involved.  I am very blessed to consider myself a (micro) influencer, and I absolutely love sharing things that make my life better with all of my Instagram followers and blog subscribers.

At the moment, most of my influencer projects are non-paid, but the connections I make with them lead to new and fabulous opportunities all the time! So it won’t take long before that becomes another income source for me ( I hope!)

PR

PR stands for public relations, and working with PR is a huge step for a blogger. It becomes so much easier to find the right affiliate programs, sponsored content and new fun ways to be an influencer.  It’s an exciting time to be a blogger, and there is still so much out there that you can do, and so many different ways to earn an income all from the comfort of your desk, or couch, or porch, or coffee shop!

For more info on PR please check out Nancy and Behrman for some great info on what it’s like to work in PR.

Also, be sure to follow  Nancy at Behrman on Facebook to keep up with her because she rocks!

For a more detailed break down about exactly how earning money from a blog works, click here.

I hope you have enjoyed this post! If you did, make sure to like, comment, and share!

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Love, JessXO