Build Your Blog: How to Make Money Blogging with a Small Blog

I've been writing this blog for almost three and a half years now. While my intentions weren't to make money when I started, over the last year or so this has kind of become a part-time gig. I'm really grateful for the opportunities that I've had, and I'm no where near being an expert on the topic, but I know that there are a lot of other smaller bloggers out there that could maybe find this useful. I'm going to be really open and honest with numbers and everything here... and like I said, I am a very small blogger. Right now on average my blog gets about 10,000-12,000 page views per month (it was about 15,000 over the summer when I was pregnant and blogging like a mad woman... but this is where I'm at as of today.) 

Right now I received income through a few different categories: sponsored posts, affiliate links, ads, and I don't know what category this one falls under but... My Recipe Magic. 

I work with a number of companies who pay me to test products, and I in return I write about them on this blog. These posts usually include a disclaimer at the top or bottom of the post, so you always know right away if I've been compensated for something that I'm writing about. The companies that I work with are:

Everywhere Agency: This company pays bloggers to attend events in their local area, and then write about the events on their blog, and post about it on all their social media outlets. When I got to meet Clinton Kelly from What Not To Wear last spring, this was the company that set that up. I was paid $75. That is the only campaign I've done with them, mostly because a lot of their events are in bigger cites that I don't live near, but I'm convinced if Derek gets a job in Atlanta, or Miami I'd be making bank. Most events pay about $100-150.

Linqia: I really love working with this company. They find bloggers to write posts about certain products and then you write your posts and share on social media. They give you a link that you have to incorporate in your posts and then you get paid off of the amount of times people click that link. They also give you a set number of clicks that you can make per campaign based off of previous campaigns and your social media reach. Typically I make more and more with each campaign that I do because they increase my click limit. I do about one campaign a month with them, and make about $200 per campaign. You can sign up for Linqia here.

Weave Made: These guys are the sister company to Pollinate Media Group. Their aim is to help small bloggers make money (yay!) Some campaigns that I've done with them include Lifeway Kefir, Klondike Bars, Instyle Magazine, and Smithfield Ribs. I typically do about one campaign a month with them, and make about $100 per campaign. 

My Recipe Magic: I'm not really sure what category this should go under, so I'll throw it here. One of my favorite blogs Six Sister's Stuff, started this website where bloggers can make money by posting their recipes on their site. When someone views your recipe on their site you make a small income, and it helps to drive traffic to your blog. I don't know exactly how much money I make per click from them, but I do make about $10 a month. 

Another way I make money off of this blog is through affiliate links. The company that I currently use for this is Shopsense. You can typically find these links on my outfit posts, or posts where I'm talking about certain products that I love, but they're not sponsored posts. Basically I'll link to the product and then when someone clicks on the link to the product, I make roughly 8 cents per click. I typically make about $5 a month through this. 

The final way that I make money is through the ads along the sidebar of my blog. Those are ran through Google Ad-sense. I basically get paid anytime anyone clicks on those ads, and the payout can be anywhere from a penny to a couple bucks... I typically make about $10/month through this. 

There you have it. You really don't need to be a huge blogger to make money blogging... although if I was a huge blogger I'm sure I would be making a lot more. Hopefully this was beneficial to someone... and hopefully everyone doesn't hate me for how open I was about everything. And again, thank you for reading and visiting my blog because if you didn't, I wouldn't even make a dime. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I really love you guys!