The Ultimate Blog Podcast - How Beginner Bloggers Actually Start Making Money

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

If you’re a beginner blogger wondering when – or if – you’ll ever start making money, you’re not alone. Whether you’ve been blogging for a few weeks or a few years, turning your blog into a source of income might feel like something only the bloggers with a big following get to do.But the truth is you don’t need thousands of pageviews or a huge amount of content to start earning money. In this episode of the Ultimate Blog Podcast, we’re kicking off a three-part series all about making your first $100 blogging – and we’re busting the myth that you have to “wait” to be profitable.💵Your First $100: 5 Beginner-Friendly Ways to Monetize Your BlogDo you love this podcast? Say thanks by leaving a positive review and/or rating! 🔗Check out the show notes for this week's episode!

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. This podcast is the podcast we wish we had when we started blogging. I'm Amy Reinicki. And I'm Jennifer Draper. Our episodes dive deep into how to monetize your blog, sharing unique insights and practical tips. We bring you in-depth interviews with successful bloggers and experts who offer valuable, actionable advice.

Our mission is to educate, support, inspire, and empower you in your blogging business. Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. So today we're gonna start a three-part series that will run this week and then the next two weeks, where we really wanna talk to you about making your first $100 and whether or not you've been blogging for a while or you want to get started. This making money piece is a really important piece. So today the topic of conversation is

going to be how beginner bloggers actually start making money. That's a question that we get often even from people who have been blogging for a little bit and they're like, well, I'm still not making money. And so really our focus is today is just kind of busting that myth that you have to wait to make money until you have traffic or have an audience. And we really just wanna show you how having some clarity around what you're doing, but also some belief in what you're doing can really lead to you

earning income early on. No, it's not going to be able to pay your house payment like right out of the gate. That's not what we're sharing with you today, but we do want you to know that when you begin blogging at that same point, that's also when you should be thinking about how you're going to make money doing this. It's not something that you need to wait to do. Every single blogger started somewhere just like you are today. And so know that where you are today is where that blogger that you're watching have all the success

started as well. They started at that period of time that they were trying to figure out what do I offer? What do I do to move the needle forward in my blogging business? And how do I find success? So we're just going to dive into that today and just give you some realistic views on what this can look like in the beginning and how you can build that momentum without expecting perfection from yourself, but just expecting some realistic goals that you can set for yourself. Yeah, we really just want to break through that myth that you have to wait until you've

achieved a certain status, whether that's a certain amount of traffic or that you have a certain amount of content or that you have a big following, because having those beliefs can delay you actually taking some action. And it's going to create this pressure on you to maybe focus on some of the wrong things in terms of growing your blog. So as a blogger I think we've created sort of this place where we see ourselves as not quite the expert, not quite the business person just yet. Like we have to achieve a certain quote thing before we have arrived as a business person. What we would like to do is just really encourage that switch to flip. We want you to think of

yourself as a business owner right from the start. You're not waiting for recognition from someone else. You're not waiting for a certain amount of traffic, none of that. You don't have to wait. You are a business the day you start your blog. In businesses, they're meant to earn money. So you wouldn't start some kind of a store selling a product, say you were selling jewelry, you wouldn't just open your doors and say, okay, everybody come in and just take what I have because I'm not experienced enough yet. No, when you start a business, you start money to be able to pay your expenses. Whether you're a store and you need money to pay rent or you're a blog and you need money to pay for your hosting, it does take money to run your business. So how long are you willing

to run this business not even trying to make money? We're not saying like the money is just going to flow in like crazy from day one, but you have to make money. We're not saying like, the money is just going to flow in like crazy from day one, but you have to start setting those things in place. You can't just keep giving everything away for free. Yes, you're creating free content, but the blogging business model is ever-changing and it is currently changing. And so we all, all of us have to shift the way that we are thinking about it so that we can help each other be successful. Absolutely, absolutely.

So if you're a beginner blogger or thinking about it, you're probably wondering, okay, like I get it, Amy and Jennifer, you're telling us that we need to make money, but how do I do that? And so we wanna talk just kind of briefly about what that actually looks like. So talk about earning like your first hundred dollars. And, and what I want you to feel empowered with, with this is that small wins are not just

possible, but they are really powerful. And even though like they're small wins or simple wins, they're still wins. And even if that is literally making your first sale over on Amazon affiliate or something like that, and you made 32 cents or 10 cents, That is still a sale. No, that cannot pay your mortgage. We know that we know that, but you have to like, if you never put a link up, if you never put anything within your posts, if you're never sharing in some way that is presenting yourself as a business that is in this to yes, share what you're passionate about, but also to make money so you can continue following your passion, then you're never going to kind of train your audience that, um,

that is how they should interact. If that makes sense. So out of the gate, when you start your blog, you want people to know, yes, you, you will have free content like Jennifer mentioned, but not everything is going to be free. There does need to be things behind a paywall and that is okay. So what are some of those things? What are some ideas that you have?

So let's say you create a digital download that you are going to sell for $10. If you made three of those sales, you'd make 30 bucks. If you made 10 of those sales, you'd make 30 bucks. If you made 10 of those sales, that's 100 bucks. Maybe you have a one-time service or a freelance option that you have. Maybe you've been blogging for a little while and there's some things that you've learned along the way. Let me tell you, there are things that you have learned along the way that you can definitely implement and help other people with. And you could do that as kind of, I'm going to call it a side hustle with your blog, but

you can offer a service like that. It might be like some copywriting. It might be creating Pinterest pins. It might be a number of things. Just think about what you do in your blogging business and how you can then help another blogger do what you're doing. Because there are bloggers out there who are at a position that they need to hire. And so they could hire someone like you who is at that beginning stages

and you kind of pulling up your bootstraps and doing what you need to do to make money. And so offering them a one-time service or offering them like a container, something that you do for them each month. It could be that you're just updating somebody's plugins on their blog and you charge them 25 bucks or something like that in order to keep their plugins up to date. Things like that. It doesn't need to be this big thing. So don't overthink it. That would be my other thing. So let's say you host a live workshop and it's about something that you're passionate about. Maybe it's about something that you're teaching somebody something. It doesn't need to be some big to do. You could create a landing page in a signup form within kit and you could link it to like a zoom link that then you could just meet people on zoom and

teach and present there. You might not even need to create a presentation. It might just be something that you're sharing and you charge $15, let's say for an hour's workshop and you sold that to five people, that would be $75 in profit. So what, what we want you to understand is that there are lots of different ways that you can earn money. Lots of different ways. It's not just an ad network. I know that you hear that a lot when it comes to blogging, but an ad network is not the only way that bloggers are making money. They're making money with affiliate sales. So you could get

started on Amazon affiliates. We're going to talk about that more. But just the biggest thing that we have to share with you today is that you have to take this first step. How does a blogger earn $100? They figure out how they're gonna earn $100. They don't sit around and say, I don't know how I'm gonna do this. I don't know how this is going to work. They just do it.

They say, okay, what am I gonna do? And now I'm gonna do it. So whatever you decide to do, just do it. Commit to the goal, commit to the process, and then get it up there and get working. Yeah. If you're sitting here thinking $100, like a $10 product, is that even worth it? It's really not about the money per se. It's about the belief that it will give you in yourself and your ability to

continue to make money. So you're just getting started. Think about this as the very beginning and think about how this is going to add up over time versus waiting a year or two years. Think about if you're just making a little bit of money every month, that's going to be adding up. So some people might say it's not worth it, but isn't it better to start now, create that habit now, and start learning now? Because doing these simple things, putting these simple offers out there, it's going to give you feedback, it's going to give you experience, it's going to give you clarity about what people are really looking for. This is a great time to test things out with your audience.

Just take a chance. Learn what they like. See if they're willing to buy it. And honestly, you're kind of training them to be willing to pay for things from you. They're starting to learn that it's worth it. So just making that progress is going to lead to more progress. You just have to take that first step. And then as you start to make some sales, whether you're selling a digital product, affiliate sales, it's going to start just snowballing that confidence to keep you going. And you're going to keep looking for new ways. And you're just going to feel more motivated about your business and motivated to keep looking for ways to make more money. Yeah, I think it just kind of fuels you quite honestly, like when you're, when you start

making a little money, you get a little excited, like, how else can I do that? Or, okay, that was kind of fun. It feels like kind of this challenge that you can go after and it can be really exciting. And I want you to come with the attitude and with a mindset of this is exciting. This is exciting to learn about my audience. It's exciting to learn how I can serve them. If you create something and it falls flat, figure out why.

Ask them, did you like it? Was it helpful? Was it not? What could I have done differently like Jennifer just said with a smaller audience especially in the beginning that's when you can create those really strong connections with the people who are reading and purchasing from you you can ask them those very specific things maybe they buy a digital product from you and then

you could send them like a follow-up email and say hey how was that how did that help you was there anything that you could have them like a follow-up email and say, Hey, how was that? How did that help you? Was there anything that you could have used more of or less of, or how could I have made this more impactful? And then take that information and then turn that into another product or to make that product better before you market it to a larger audience. We just want you to take action. That is the one thing that we want you to leave today with.

This is going to be some shorter episodes for you. Intentionally, we want these episodes over the next three weeks to just feel like, okay, we're going to take this negative information and then we're going to go do. And we would love to hear how you're doing it. So, you know, connect with us over on Instagram, send us an email. We're always open and willing, but just let us know how you are taking action this week and towards your first hundred dollars. And if you really don't know where to get started or you just want some help, we've created this guide for you. It's a $5 guide. And what it's going to do is walk you through five beginner

friendly monetization methods. They do not require a huge audience and they are very doable for you to create and achieve in just a couple hours. So when you grab this you are going to be empowered with this fuel to be able to make that first hundred dollars. We have included worksheets that are going to help you brainstorm your ideas and put them into action because that's what we want you to do. We don't want you to purchase this guide without the intent to use it. How many times have you purchased something like that? And then you never open it.

Please don't do that. If you invest the $5, we want you to get the guide. We want you to do the work. And then we want you to figure out what your next steps are so you can start earning your money too. And like Jennifer said, it's just going to snowball. And then from there, you can set deadlines for yourself to implement it, like we said, and do it.

Don't overthink it. Just start doing it today. You can grab that guide at the ultimate blog podcast.com slash 100. And I just hope that you took this 15 minutes today and feel empowered to go after it, Quit overthinking this process. It does not need to be difficult. It does not need to be hard. You are equipped with everything that you need today

to get started making money blogging. I don't care if you've been blogging for 10 days or 10 years and you're still not making money, today's the day that that can change. And so we'd love to know how you're gonna do that. Feel free to check in with us. And once again, you can grab that guide at theultimateblogpodcast.com slash 100. And we really hope that it is just the fuel that you need to get started earning more

revenue with your blog in 2025. Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about building your blog, visit theultimateblogpodcast.com backslash newsletter to get signed up for our email newsletter. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to share it with a friend, subscribe and leave a rating and review on Apple time.