A beginner’s guide: How to make money blogging

What does “making a living” from blogging mean?

“Making a living” means your blog directly (and predictably) pays your bills. Revenue can come from multiple streams — affiliate commissions, display ads, sponsored posts, digital products (courses, templates), services (coaching, audits), memberships, and your own ecommerce. The blog’s main job is to attract targeted readers, earn their trust, and guide them to a helpful next step (your offer).

Here are a few examples of people who make (or have made) a living blogging and how they got there:

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner — Making Sense of Cents
Forbes profiled Michelle Schroeder-Gardner as earning over $1 million per year from her blog while living/traveling on a sailboat.
How she got there:

• She built the blog over time and shared that it took six months to earn her first $100, emphasizing the long-game nature of blog income.

• She’s known for publishing income content and explaining how she monetizes.

Lindsay & Bjork Ostrom — Pinch of Yum
The Ostrom’s publicly published a large set of monthly income and traffic reports as part of their “Food Blog Money Making Experiment,” documenting income generation from a food blog over years.
How they got there:

• They committed to transparency early, publishing reports starting in September 2011 and continuing for multiple years, showing methodical growth and monetization testing. Their reports include detailed breakdowns (ads/affiliates/sponsors/services). For example, one early report shows a multi-source breakdown totaling $4,102.16, illustrating incremental scale.

• Yahoo Food & Wine highlighted them as a major success case, noting they once publicly reported earning over $95,000 in a single month, and discussed monetization diversification as a key lever.

Kylie — Midwest Foodie (food blog)
In her income reports, Kylie describes Midwest Foodie as a full-time job/career bringing in multi-six-figure income, and she publishes detailed breakdowns of traffic, revenue, and expenses. In fact, her Q1 2024 income totaled $99,632, with revenue largely from Mediavine (display ads) and smaller streams like Amazon Associates and digital products.
How she got there (path + strategy):

• She notes she built the site from the ground up starting in 2017.

• Over time she focused on a clear niche (she calls it comfort food/family dinner) and built a large content library (624 live posts) with consistent publishing.

• Her 2025 “blog snapshot” shows the scale that supports full-time income: 8.5 years blogging, 700,000+ views/month on average in 2025, and a sizable audience across email and social.

• Monetization is primarily display advertising, which is common for high-traffic recipe blogs.

Why build a business blogging for income?

Blogging isn’t just writing — it’s building a long-term asset that grows traffic, audience, and income over time with minimal upfront cost.

• Search discovers you: Evergreen posts capture ongoing traffic for years.

• Compounding audience: Email and social growth with each post.

• Low overhead: A domain, hosting, and a few tools get you started.

• Monetization flexibility: You can add income streams as you learn what your readers want.

A blog can drive predictable income through multiple streams. It works by earning trust and moving readers toward an offer.

• Affiliate commissions are a major revenue driver in ecommerce.
  A Performance Marketing Association + London Research study reported that affiliates drive $113B in sales across all industries — about 9.4% of all e-commerce sales.

• Content (including blogging) is strongly tied to cost-effective lead generation.
  Demand Metric research found content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing, and it generates over 3x as many leads.

• Creator content influences purchase behavior (a proxy for “earned trust” leading to action).
  Pew Research Center found 30% of adult social media users have purchased something after seeing an influencer/content creator post. That number rises to 53% among people who follow influencers.

What are the components of a profitable blog?

A profitable blog runs on systems, not guesswork — combining clear positioning, consistent content, smart distribution, and multiple revenue streams to drive sustainable growth.

• Niche & positioning: A clear lane with a specific reader and problem.

• Content system: Topics, outlines, calendar, and a repeatable post format.

• Design & brand: Readable theme, fast pages, consistent visuals and post graphics (easy wins with Adobe Express templates).

• Distribution: SEO, email list, social snippets, and partnerships.

• Monetization stack: Affiliation, products, services, sponsorships, ads.

• Analytics: Search Console/analytics, affiliate dashboards, and simple KPIs.

• Ops: SOPs for research, writing, editing, images, publishing, and updates.

What are blogging best practices?

Strong blogging isn’t about writing more — it’s about writing with intention. These best practices help you create content that’s clear, engaging, and built to perform over time.

• Write to one reader. Picture a specific person with a specific problem.

• Win the first 100 words. Start with the payoff; avoid throat-clearing.

• Clarity over clever. Short sentences, active voice, concrete steps.

• Show, don’t tell. Screenshots, diagrams, before/after examples.

• Freshness beats perfection. Publish, learn, and improve next week.

• Maintain a library. Keep cornerstone guides updated and interlinked.