How to turn your Passion into a Money Making Blog!

How do you turn your passion into a money making blog?

You’ve probably heard all the hype already right?

“Six figure” this, and “quit your job” that. #quitthe9to5club

Many people will claim to show you how to start a blog, but honestly, do you really need to be shown how to go to bluehost and sign up for a domain name?

ATTENTION: This is not a post about how to set up your blog. If that’s what you want, you can find that here.

Maybe you do, and I don’t wanna leave you high and dry if you’re just starting out.

Two years ago I took the plunge. I quit my day job and started blogging full time. I went from zero to everything I’ve got now.

Going on nothing but an idea – a dream actually.

Blogging sounded like the perfect way for me (a hard introvert) to maintain myself and do something I was passionate about simultaneously. 

Here’s how to turn your passion into a money making blog. 

In a hurry? Get the Passion Blogger Life Vest, a free checklist and guide that takes you from zero to a fully set up blog based on your unique passion. The only thing to do after completing the steps on the checklist is to start creating content!

How to turn your Passion into a Money Making Blog!

1. Get the difficult questions out of the way first
2. Narrow down your Passions List
3. Write a mission statement
4. “Great, but how do I monetize that?”
5. Learn from someone who’s done it!
6. Follow their instructions to the letter
7. Create Massive Amounts of Content
8. Scale your Blog: Reach more, do more!
9. 50 questions for passion & purpose [FREE]

1. Get the difficult questions out of the way first

Do you actually want to blog? There’s nothing worse than getting good at the wrong thing. There’s also nothing worse than getting into something for the wrong reasons. Just because everyone is going crazy about blogging and trying to teach you how to become a “6 figure blogger” doesn’t mean you let them decide what your life should be. 

It’s your job to know what blogging is, what it means for you and your life, and make a decision as to whether it’s something YOU want to pursue. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do just because you “need to have a side hustle” or “blogging is hot right now”.

Make your own choices.

Are you willing to put in the work?

I was blogging for at least 12 months before I saw any kind of results I was proud of. Don’t get me wrong, putting in all those hours was exhilarating, but those long hours came with little results until a while down the road. For your first blog, things will probably be similar for you. Your blog needs to build momentum. Are you willing to wait on that?

Even the most successful bloggers didn’t reach seriously impressive numbers until about 6-8 months.

Are you in it for the long haul?

Are you someone who got caught up in the “I can show you how to make an extra $1k-$10k per month scheme? That kind of money is DEFINITELY possible with blogging. Absolutely possible, and I know if you stick with it, you’ll get those numbers eventually. 

My concern is that you have the timeline shorter than what’s reality. No matter who you are, serious traffic, popularity and money are going to take you months of consistent effort to attain. That being said, when I heard this from the people who taught me how to blog, immediately I thought… “only months? I’m in!” So if that’s you, you’re in the right spot!

Do you know what blogging is inside and out?

In the beginning, you’ll be doing:

• writing
• other kinds of content creation,
• promotion,
• probably a little social media,
• some emailing down the line,
• and technical stuff until you can outsource it.

If just those few sentences scare you, maybe turn back now. Try this post I wrote on all the different ways you can make money online if blogging is starting to sound like a hard no for you.

Do you have the time? Are you willing to create time?

We’re all in different phases of life, different circumstances and have different responsibilities. I know that. 

I also know that life doesn’t care. If you don’t do what’s required life won’t give you the results you want. You can’t tell life that you’re blog isn’t happening because you’re busy with your kids or with your job and expect life to care. You need to make time if you don’t have time.

This might mean stripping your life of everything that is not mandatory. Don’t get rid of your kids…but maybe the book club on the weekends needs to go if it eats up 4 hours a night. Get me?

2. Narrow down your passions list

When you’ve made the decision to turn your passion into a money making blog, you’ll need to decide on what you’re gonna blog about. If you have one passion, or you know already, problem solved…

If, however, you have several ideas swirling around in your head, you’ll need to make a choice. 

Make sure you’re in love with the choice you make, because you’ll be basing your domain name off of it (the name of your blog) and a lot of stuff about your blog will be stuck that way, unless you choose to redo it completely.

You can have as many blogs as you want, but probably better to start with one for now eh?

3. Write a Mission Statement

This is different from a guide that just teaches you how to start a blog. I’m not going into a huge amount of detail, because this is a post specifically for creatives who are deeply passionate about something and wanna bring it to the world.

If you want a detailed checklist and guide on how to get your blog up and running, download the Passion Blogger Life Jacket. It’s a free checklist and guide I created to take you from no idea, all the way to having a domain and the first stages of your blog set up, with all the resources for success and monetization you’ll need in between. Free of course.

Most “how to set up your blog” posts won’t tell you to create a mission statement, but I am.

Why? You’re a passionate creative who wants to bring something extraordinary and valuable to the world. 

How do you create a mission statement? Well, I go over all that in the Passion Blogger Life Jacket, and also here on this post called How to Create your Personal Mission Statement! 

For now, start on a piece of paper and copy this formula. 

If I were to create one for THELIFESYNTHESIS:

I got this formula from a course I bought from Mike Shreeve a long time ago. So if you read this Mike, thanks a lot!

4. Your Blog in Fast Forward

You’ll go through a serious amount of trial and error. That’s to be expected, especially if you’ve never started a blog or blogged before. 

You’ll have a certain learning curve to get through, technical stuff to become frustrated about, life appointments to put on hold, etc…

That’s not to psych you out or anything. I just want you to understand that you’re not avoiding the learning curve by going through these steps.

…but I would recommend having a master plan for your blog. AS MUCH as you can, know the purpose of the blog.

• Have a general idea of who you serve
• What problems do they have?
• Who are they? (age, gender[?], activities, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, attitudes)
• What is the purpose of the blog in one sentence?

5. Learn from someone who’s done it!

This should be common sense. Do not take advice from someone who hasn’t done this themselves.

I’d go as far as to say that even someone who has a successful blog isn’t good enough.

Why?

Because there are two types of blogs.

1. Blogs that served a need that was obviously there
2. Blogs that created a “movement” from nothing

Someone who created a successful finance blog about how to budget 2019 like a boss is not the same kind of blogger who made it cool to forge your own path, break off from the norm that the previous generation followed and do your own thing, successfully while paying the bills and looking good doing it.

One is hard.

The other is nearly impossible. It takes a different kind of person to take the latter path, but they have to, because nothing else will satisfy them. Learn from that person!

Read my review about the experts I learned to blog from!

6. Follow their instructions to the letter

Self explanatory. Once you’ve found someone to teach you how to set this whole thing up, do what they say, when they say, how they say, and if you feel something’s not working, ask them for help.

Be a good student. I did it, and it’s the easiest way to get your blog up fast, avoid pitfalls, take the most direct route to success and not waste time on crap that doesn’t matter.

Best tip on this entire post right here pal.

7. Create Massive Amounts of Content

I’m a huge action guy. I’m not sure what kind of person you are, but I prefer to win by putting in insane amounts of effort. That means 10x the regular amount at least. 

Here are a few reasons why creating a seriously, ridiculously large amount of content will help you:

1. You’ll see what works
2. You’ll see what doesn’t work
3. You’ll grow faster
4. You’ll get better at blogging faster because you’ll make your mistakes faster

Those are pretty much the only reason you need I think. A lot of what’s important for you in blogging happens quicker if you do more in less time.

Seeing what works means you’ll notice what posts soar and which ones completely bomb!

Growing faster means you’ll nail your system and get into your blogging groove much faster if you get all the kinks out and conquer the learning curve in your first few months. 

8. Scale your Blog: Reach more, do more!

Blogging is on the internet. How many people do we hear about on podcasts, see on instagram or on other social media channels doing their thing?

Blogging, especially about something that is uniquely you, has the potential to send your career sky high and put you in environments where what was uniquely you, is now appreciated by millions and a commonplace thing.

You did that. Grats.

What Blogging looks like in a nutshell

Just in case you didn’t know. Here’s what to expect when you decide to turn your passion into a money making blog!

1. Creating Content
2. Driving Traffic
3. Serving Audience needs
4. Promoting/Creating Amazing Products
5. Nurturing your Following
6. Reaping the Blogging Rewards!

1. Creating Content

Duh, right? They say content is king, and for a good reason. Inc.com, Forbes Magazine, Oprah, huffpost – all of these companies are obsessed with putting as much content on the web as possible.

Why? – because the best way to prove to someone you can help them…is to help them.

What do you think you’re reading right now? You might be reading this in the future, but right now I’m writing this post with you in mind. You’re interested in taking your passion online, and one of the ways to do that is to create a blog. This is a blog you’re reading – my blog. So meta right?

When people come to my blog, they’re getting free help. Then there are several paths to take.

1. People who aren’t interested in going any further go somewhere else in internet land and do internet stuff.
2. Those who are SUPER serious about this and wish to go further sign up for something awesome I’m giving away for free, and we cultivate their success and progress over time.

None of that happens without content, and you’ll be creating a lot of it. Whether that’s writing, podcasting, videos etc…

2. Driving Traffic

This doesn’t need to get too technical. I just want you to understand that there will be a time when you’re having to put in the work to get eyes on your work. This really isn’t that difficult and you can make a lot of headway with free and paid courses you might take in the future. 

Good ways to drive traffic to your blog include:

1. Google SEO (not hard)
2. Social Media (not hard)

If you’re interested in going further, I go over how to do this in my Passion To Money Making blog e-course. 

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Did you catch what just happened? Above is a link to opt into a FREE email course I created. I’m not going over that material here, because not everyone wants it. Only people who are serious about turning their passion into a money making blog want that info.

What happens is you click the link, enter your email address, and over the next few days I’ll be sending you a bunch of MUCH more detailed info on making this a reality for you.

It’s a chance for you to take this to the next level and make passion blogging a reality for you. 

It’s also a chance for you and I to get to know each other better, for me to help you succeed, and for us to cultivate that kind of nice relationship. Which for creatives, is super important.

Just letting you in on all the blogging secrets 🙂

3. Serving Audience Needs

Your blog is a combination of what feeds your inner fire and satisfies a world need. There is some room for being someone like Mark Manson (where people just like you, and read your stuff because YOU wrote it) but there’s also a time and place to think about how your knowledge, passion and skills and help a large audience of readers progress in their lives.

You probably know what your passions are, if you want some help with that, you can get 50 questions for finding your passion and purpose in life here.

But how do you figure out what people want, and what they need to move forward in life?

You’ll be doing stuff like keyword research, hanging out where your following hangs out, doing market research (slightly advanced in some cases) and answering questions that people are asking online.

This part isn’t hard, but your blog will need to be heavy on the service side if you really wanna have serious impact. 

4. Promoting / Selling  Products

Oh no, money’s involved? That means you’re a scammer, a schemer and a charlatan right? 

Nope, as long as you are providing a solution to a serious problem someone has in their live, or making their life experience in general richer (however that happens) they’ll have no problem paying for it.

Take yourself for example: there are promotional materials in this post. Do you have a problem with that? Later on in the post there will be opportunities for you to take advantage of the same paid products I did to take my passion online. They literally helped me do the thing you’re trying to do. How ridiculous would it be for me to feel bad for promoting something that actually worked for me?

There are 3 situations you’ll run into with promotion and selling:

1. People who are grateful that a product like this even exists. It serves a need they have and solves a problem they have. Thank god is the feeling they’ll have.
2. People who aren’t ready for it yet, but might be in the future (no problem).
3. People who think selling anything is a scam and will hate no matter what.

The first two are the people you’re concerned with helping. The third is a group of people that exist in all walks of life, and they hate everything about earth in general, not just you. 

After your blog picks up steam, you’ll spend a considerable amount of time thinking about your readers needs and what you could offer them that will improve the quality of their lives, or move them along the path they’re on faster.

Helping people get results is a passion of mine, and it’s unbelievably rewarding. You’ll have fun doing it.

5. Nurturing your Following

Eventually you’ll develop a following. These are people who love what you say and how YOU say it. Blogging is starting to become saturated.

This doesn’t mean blogging is dead though. It just means that people are starving for fresh, creative perspectives on life  (or whatever you’re blogging about). If you google anything, the first few links on page 1 of Google will all be the same information, regurgitated the same way.

Nurturing your following means a few things:

• Make your content specific to them
• Make your perspective unique (from experience) and fresh
• Creating content for all stages of their path (beginning – middle – end)
• Offering them progress at each stage (general interest – free stuff – paid stuff)
• Giving them solutions to all the problems and hiccups they might experience
• Being genuinely invested in their success

6. Reaping the Blogging Rewards

Bloggers make money. In specific cases, a lot of money, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

When you put a tremendous amount of effort into a good (physical or digital) or service, you deserve to be paid for it. There’s something a bit creepy about someone who thinks that anyone is gonna put effort into anything of value, and then give it away for free. It’s their mind that’s screwed up, not yours.

Here are a few things that I consider especially rewarding about blogging:

1. Having an email list of people who are waiting to read your stuff each day
2. People who subscribe to the blog and are regular readers
3. Knowing that you;re having an impact in someone else’s life
4. Being able to work from home, on your own time
5. Having people in the same niche respect your work (huge)
6. Being your own boss in general
7. Working with other bloggers
8. Getting recognized for doing something you’re in love with!
9. Seeing your readers path to success, and giving them help and motivation along the way
10. Creating valuable content in general (I actually love blogging every day)

Reasons to Start a Blog

There are many reasons to start a blog, from the money it can make, to becoming popular, but from a creative’s perspective here are a few reasons that might get you interested in turning your passion into a money making blog!

You Focus on your Passion More

Especially when you get to the point where people are willing to pay for your expertise, you’ll be able to spend less time on 9 to 5 day job and more time doing what you love. 

Even if you’re blogging about knitting. Maybe you create a Knitting 101 book and sell it for $7. How many sales do you really need per month to make all the effort before hand worth it?

1. 1 sale / week = $28 per month
2. 1 sale / day = $196 per month
3. 10 sales  / day = $1960 per month

Other’s can appreciate your efforts!

Who wants to do something nobody cares about?

That’s why “service to others” is such a HUGE theme in popular methods for finding your passion and purpose like Ikigai and Eulerian Destiny.

There’s something empty about doing something you love, but nobody else cares about it. So instead of having something you love doing, and another separate thing that helps others, find a way to mix the two and you have a successful passion blog.

When you open up emails every morning responding to yesterdays broadcast, full of questions you can answer and help you can provide, you’ll get much more from the blog than just the money. 

…money’s good too though!

You’ll be serving a huge community

How many people need to “need” your help for you to consider it an obligation? In other words, how many people need to raise their hand asking you personally for your help for you to think “I should probably get serious about this.”.

If you put the effort in…

If you double down on what works, and ditch what doesn’t…

If you successfully combine your passion with serving a larger community, you’ll end up getting a serious amount of readers.

The internet is huge. You might think what you’ve based on your blog on is “too niche” but what does that even mean on the internet?

What if only 100k people were into what you’re blogging about that that’s your community. That’s enough right?

Your Blog is your Brain Child

I remember my high school wrestling coach created a summer programs branch of the school that had never existed before. 

Normally, during the summer, only the faculty and their children remained on campus, but he had this crazy idea to start bringing kids to the school for a whole range of different summer camps.

• Wrestling camps
• Regular summer camps
• Soccer camps
• Basketball camps
• English as a Second language

He masterminded the whole thing, and just seeing how he created something from nothing and it turning into a huge success was inspiring.

Being able to Imagine, visualize and execute on an idea where you’re the inventor from the ground up is super rewarding in the end. It’s really something crazy to watch happen.

One day you’ll just have a thought: “Holy shit, it worked. I knew it would work but…it actually worked!”

It’s really about having your finger on the crayon (or paintbrush) and being the master architect of your own life that’s important. That’s the decision you gotta make. Everything else is just figuring out how to mesh that with a blog.

There’s profit to be had!

Rule of Acquisition #256: never keep your knowledge and research to yourself when others are willing to pay for it!

You might not be all about monetization, and that’s fine, but I do want you to know what’s possible. I’m not blowing smoke up your ass with this money stuff.

If you can deliver results to people they will have no problem paying you for it. You don’t have an issue taking a paycheck at your job do you? It’s no different on the internet.

Don’t think your passion is worth any money? There’s a blog that does nothing but write about Campers. You know, RV’s that people use to live in while their on road trips?…It gets 250k views every single month. 

What if they created a guide called “The “Best Road Trip ever” Guide”  where they literally told you everything you needed to know about taking your first road trip, the best national parks, rest stops, state laws you should be aware of, etc… and sold it for $15.

• 250k views per month
• Around 5% of those people go to sales page
• 1% buys the book
• $1875 dollars a month
• If they monetize with ads (250k / 1000 x $8 = $2000)

Those are all worst case scenario numbers too! I used very modest estimates, and $15 is on the smaller end of amounts you can ask for products.

This really isn’t about being money hungry, but I wanted to include this in here just in case you are battling limiting beliefs about how successful your blog could be. People are interested in reading about RV’s for vacation, they’re interested in your knitting blog too! 

How to Start Now!

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