How quickly can you realistically make money with a new blog?
One of the questions I get asked the most from people who want to start blogging is “How long will it take me to make money if I start a blog?” and it is such a hard question to answer in a few words so most of the time I just answer with “It really depends” but the answer is so much more complex than that.
Today I’m going to be answering in full how long it will realistically take a new blogger to make money.
Keep in mind all the timelines I’m talking about today will be based on people who are working on their blogs daily or weekly so if you take days or weeks off at a time you’ll have to add that to the numbers I provide for a more realistic timeline for yourself.
How long will it take you to set up your blog?
The first thing that plays into it is how long it takes you to start your blog.
Many people want to start a blog so they sign up for hosting see that they have to put some work into setting it up and get overwhelmed and don’t get past that step so for those people they are never going to make money blogging.
I don’t want that to be you so I’ve created a free course that will help you start your blog in one day. If you spend a few hours in that one day doing all the parts you could have a fully set up blog in one day. If you only have a few extra minutes everyday it should help you set up your blog fully in about a week.
Here’s the signup form free course:
Free Course: How to Start A Successful Blog From Scratch.
You can access all the lessons in one day, or you can break it down over 6 days. Here is what it covers:
Lesson 1: How to choose a name, and blog topics.
Lesson 2: How to start a blog & install the design of your choice.
Lesson 3: Planning out your content.
Lesson 4: Monetizing your website as a beginner.
Lesson 5: Increasing your website's traffic to make more money.
Lesson 6: Wrap up & Guide to follow for the future to maximize profit
Learn how to start a profitable blog from scratch in this FREE 6-day email course. Trust me, you won’t need any prior blogging knowledge
Total Time Requires So Far:
1 day to 1 week.
How long will it take you to monetize your blog?
Recently, I talked about the best forms of monetization for new bloggers and if you’re curious how you should monetize your new blog to make the most money you can read that post here.
For this post, I’m just going to break down each form of monetization and how long they would take to implement not which will make you the most.
Affiliate Marketing: 3Weeks
Affiliate marketing is a great form of monetization. It’s when you sign up for a kick-back program with a company and if you talk about one of their products and use your special link when you do so you will earn a commission for any sales that come through your link.
The downside to affiliate marketing is that you have to apply which means you only get approved based on the companies judgment of you. Some companies are great and approve everyone’s application others approve very few bloggers. To improve your chances of getting approved you need content on your website, pictures on your website, and blog posts the company could see their content integrated in so they know that you’re a good fit. Having to add this extra content to your website will probably take you a week or more.
With affiliate marketing the process is:
You find a company with an affiliate program (Amazon, Target, and Walmart, all have affiliate programs for example) that will probably take a few hours.
Then you apply for the affiliate program that probably takes a few minutes.
Then you have to wait to get approved that can take 1-2 weeks or be faster it really depends on how fast the company reviews applications.
Then if you get approved you have to write a blog post with affiliate links in it that probably takes a day or two.
Digital Products: 1 Week
Digital products are the best form of monetization. It’s when you create a digital download, ebook, or course, and sell it through advertising it on your blog in blog posts, and through social media. Digital products are simple to create and can earn you big bucks.
The benefits of digital products are that you don’t have to wait for an application to be approved or figure out what to do when it gets denied. You don’t also have to fill your website with content and posts just so that your application gets approved. it allows you to take matters into your own hands and start monetizing your website right away.
With digital products the process is:
You pick an idea and the type of digital product, then you outline it which will probably take a few hours.
You create the digital product which could take a few days.
You create the checkout & landing page for the product which might take a day.
You write blog posts and social posts to advertise the product which could take a few days.
Sponsorships: 1 Month+
Once your blog has a large audience sponsorships are a great way to monetize it because a company will pay you a lump sum, or monthly to mention their product or company in a blog post and social posts. Sponsorships don’t require too much work on paper but it takes A LOT of work to get to the point of getting sponsorship offers.
Before you can approach a company about a sponsorship or before they approach you, you will need:
10+ Blog posts with comments, and shares. This will probably take 1-2 months to achieve.
Google Analytics installed and tracked thousands of views for more than a month. This at the minimum would take 2 months to achieve.
At least one other social channel with thousands of followers. This would probably take 6 months to a year to achieve.
Then a brand needs to agree to sponsor you and sign a contract. This would probably take a week or two.
Then you have to create the content and submit it for review. This would probably take a day or two.
Once it’s reviewed you can post it.
Ads: 1 Week
Ads are super easy to get started with so they sound like the perfect way to make money quickly but they aren’t we will talk about why in the next section but first I’m going to break down the process of getting started with ads.
The ad process is:
Find an ad company and apply. (Media.net or Google Adsense) This would take about a day.
Wait for approval. This could take up to 7 days.
Install your ads. This will probably take an hour or two.
Total Time Required So Far
Affiliate marketing: 2 or 3 weeks
Digital products: 1 or 2 weeks.
Sponsorships: 10 months to a year.
Ads: 1 or 2 weeks.
How long will it take you to get traffic to your blog before you make money?
Now let’s talk about the most variable aspect of this whole process getting traffic. Each type of monetization requires a different level of traffic to earn money so let’s break this down.
Affiliate Marketing: Requires about 1,000+ people to earn a sale.
Digital Products: Requires about 1,000 people to earn a sale.
Sponsorships: Requires about 10,000 people to earn a sponsorship.
Ads: Require about 20,000 people to earn a sizeable amount.
So you can see based on these values you can earn from a much smaller audience with digital products and affiliate marketing.
My favorite way to get people to my blog is Pinterest. I get about 2,000,000 views a month on my Pinterest with minimal effort.
It just feels the most natural to me. Some people use Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or TikTok. For each of those platforms, you have to post regularly if not daily to grow an audience. Then on top of that, you have to know how to grow an audience on that platform. Since Pinterest is my favorite I wrote a blog post about how I’ve used it to get my blog to earn $400,000 a year and you can read that blog post here.
I would say on Pinterest it will take a month or two to grow an audience large enough to start earning if you do it daily or schedule your posts how I talk about in that post.
But for the others, I really can’t say because they haven’t been the focus of my business but let’s just say 2+ months for affiliate marketing and digital products and 4+ months for sponsorships and ads.
Total Time Required So Far
Affiliate marketing: 2 or 3 months.
Digital products: 1 or 2 months.
Sponsorships: a year to 14 months.
Ads: 4 or 5 months
How long after you earn money will you get paid?
The final thing to take into consideration is how long after earning money you get paid.
Depending on the way you earn money will change how long it takes them to actually pay you the money you earn.
When you are working with a company so in affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and ads they typically hold your money for a set period of time after you earn it to make sure that no sales are refunded (affiliate marketing), and that you’ve held up your end of the deal (sponsorships and ads). That period of time varies between 30 days after the last day of the month you earned money in and 120 days after the last day of the month you earned money in. These are referred to as “Net 30” and “Net 120”.
When you are making money on your own through digital products you can get paid as soon as the day you earn the money depending on the service you use to process the payment. The longest you will typically wait to get paid the money from your digital product sales would be a week. So digital products can pay you much faster than any other form of monetization.
Let’s break down the fastest way to earn money as a blogger:
This is how quickly a hard-working average blogger can expect to get paid as a blogger:
Affiliate marketing between 3 and 6 months.
Digital products between 1 and 2 months.
Sponsorships between a year to 17 months.
Ads between 5 and 8 months
That means the fastest way to get paid as a blogger in most cases will be by creating and selling your own digital products. The second fastest way to get paid as a blogger is through affiliate marketing, followed by ads and finally sponsorships.
I’ve been quite vocal that digital products are the best way for bloggers to make money and this just further proves that.
If you have a blog or want to start one use this post to help you plan your monetization strategy!
Hopefully, it’s helpful if you have questions you can comment them below, or DM me on Instagram my Instagram is: ByTaylorStanford or you can click here.
Obviously with all of this said there is still a lot of variability in this industry you could go viral and make money in any of these ways much faster, or you could take a while to find your groove and it could take a little longer but this estimate should help you decide your path.
I'm just a small-town girl who built a blog that changed my life and now I'm sharing my life to hopefully help you realize you are capable and worthy of your dream life.