The reality is that I could not have done it without the resources I found online from bloggers, entrepreneurs, and freelancers. I listened to countless podcasts, read as many online articles and books as I could, and immersed myself in this world to finally be comfortable when I “took the leap”. So, I want to “pay it forward” and share some of what I’ve learned along the way, too, for anybody else looking to make this change in their own life!

Over my years of blogging, I’ve received quite a few questions about the business of blogging — how to grow an audience, how to earn money, how to work with brands, etc.

So, I’ve decided to document some of my strategies, tips, and best resources in the “Blogging” section of my site for everyone to access.

For anyone who hasn’t launched a blog yet, I suggest reading How to Start Your Own Conscious Blog first because this article skips the basics and dives right into monetization!

Okay, now let’s get to the five ways to earn money as a conscious blogger…

1. Affiliates

What is affiliate income?

Affiliate income is essentially like sales commission for sales driven online. If someone clicks through your affiliate link on your blog (or email, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.) and ends up making a purchase within a certain number of days (called the “cookie window”), then you earn a percentage of those sales. 

The cookie window varies by brand, but somewhere between 15-60 days is typical. Something to note: if someone clicks through your affiliate link to a brand’s website but then 5 days later that same person clicks through another blogger’s affiliate link to that same brand’s website site and makes a purchase, the “last touch” blogger will typically earn the revenue. Some brands do have more complex affiliate systems where they credit multiple sources, but this is not super common.

The percentage of affiliate commission that you earn from the sales will vary significantly by brand. In my experience with ethical fashion and sustainable lifestyle brands, somewhere between 5-20% is typical. Generally, I don’t participate in affiliate programs offering less than 3 or 4% commission (unless it’s a brand with higher price-point items, such as fine jewelry) because it doesn’t tend to be worth the effort.

Direct-to-consumer companies typically offer affiliates a higher commission percentage (15 – 20%). Retailers, however, since they have slimmer margins, typically offer a lower commission (5 – 10%). However, retailers often offer a wider variety of goods than direct-to-consumer brands, so they can still be valuable affiliate partners!

Where do you get affiliate links?

In order to get affiliate links, you must first sign-up for an affiliate network, which is essentially a third-party that connects bloggers/publishers with brands.

The programs that I have found to be the best for finding conscious fashion brands are ShareASale, Refersion, Affiliatly, RewardStyle, and AvantLink (which is the platform Patagonia is on). Affiliates do not usually have to pay any fees to get set up with an affiliate network, but I try to stick to a limited number of programs for less administrative overhead.

I’m also part of Skimlinks, which is an affiliate network aggregator. By being part of Skimlinks, you can access brands from a variety of affiliate programs, which makes it my favorite affiliate platform!

Typically, with an affiliate network, you have to apply to each brand’s affiliate program and manually create your own customized affiliate links when you share the brand’s website or share product pages from that brand’s website.

Skimlinks, though, takes all this administrative work out. You just have a one-time set-up (either putting a line of code on your site or installing a plug-in) and then, like magic, all of the applicable links on your blog from brands that belong to the Skimlinks network are turned into Skimlinks affiliate links!

How much money do you earn with affiliate income?

It depends! This answer will vary based on these variables:

1. How much traffic your blog posts with affiliate links are receiving
2. How well the brands/products resonate with your audience (i.e. does your audience want or need those products)
3. Your commission percentage from the affiliate links

In the beginning days of blogging, I barely earned anything at all with affiliates. I was happy to earn $50 a month! But now, as my website traffic has increased, the number of affiliates I work with grew, and my strategies of using affiliate links developed, I’ve been able to earn a significant portion of my income through my affiliate links.

Also important to note is that affiliate revenue will fluctuate quite a bit. November and December are going to probably be higher months (coordinating with what months are strong for retail overall) and January is going to likely be a pretty slow month since it’s a slower month for retail in general.

Another benefit of affiliate links beyond the immediate revenue is that they can be a great beginning of a partnership with a brand. If you show value to a brand using their affiliate links, it makes the conversation/pitch for a bigger partnership much easier as they already know that you can create a return on investment for them. Which brings me to….

2. Brand Sponsorships

What exactly is a brand sponsorship?

I define a sponsorship as a partnership in which a blogger promotes a brand for an agreed upon amount of compensation. This can be gifted product or payment, though I’m going to focus on the payment part because this blog post is about making money with blogging.

How do you get a brand sponsorship?

You might be surprised at how early in your blogging journey you get pitches from brands! We’ve all been hearing about the rise of the micro-influencer and brands are increasingly seeing the value of smaller bloggers/influencers with an engaged audience.

That said, you don’t need to wait around for a brand to email you in order to get a brand sponsorship. Bloggers can also pitch the brands they’d like to work with.

From my experience working on the brand side of influencer partnerships, I have a few tips to help you stand out in your pitch:

1. Share your numbers. Put numbers like website visitors, web sessions, domain authority, social media audience size and engagement percentage, email subscribers, audience statistics (age, country, etc. of your audience) in a media kit to send to brands. You don’t have to put all of these numbers, but including as much as possible will make it much simpler for the brand to understand how big your audience is, how engaged they are, and who your audience is. Brands don’t just want any exposure from influencers but want to make sure they are reaching their target audience.
2. Be specific. In your media kit, be sure to include the ways that you work with brands and the associated fees (like a Blog Post for $450 or Instagram Post + 3 Instagram Stories for $200). But also, try to tailor your pitch to the brand, suggesting the exact features of the brand/product that you would highlight and that your audience would love. The specific pitches immediately stand out and increase the likelihood of response because you’ve just made it that much easier for the brand representative on the other side!
3. Figure out where you can be flexible. As with any type of professional (and personal!) relationship, flexibility is key. This doesn’t mean reducing your rates to a point that isn’t financially sustainable for you and it DOES NOT mean working for free (!!) but it may mean adjusting what you offer even if it’s “not typically what you do” to create a win-win for you and the brand. This might include creating a unique variety of types of sponsored content you don’t normally do, throwing in a “freebie” or extra shout-out if the brand is working with you on your largest sponsorship package in your media kit, or offering a small discount on your prices with the use of brand affiliate links.
4. Follow up! Just like all of us, brand influencer managers can get busy and lose track of their emails. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the brand doesn’t want to work with you. Don’t be afraid to follow up once or twice. If you don’t hear back after that, either move on to the next brand or, if you’d really like to work with that particular brand, find a different contact to reach out to.

How much can you earn from sponsorships? How do you know what to charge?

Similar to affiliate revenue, this varies a lot depending on your audience size, web traffic, and a whole host of other factors.

Social Bluebook and Influencer Marketing Hub are trusted resources for calculating how much you should charge per Instagram post, though don’t be afraid to charge more than these platforms suggest — there is more value in niche industries, and as a conscious and sustainable blogger knowledgable about eco-friendly and ethical products, you definitely are offering something special.

You can also charge more if you take high-quality images, and you should definitely charge more if you are hiring a professional photographer to shoot your photos!

As far as charging for a blog post, the pricing formula is based on your monthly visitors or page views and your domain authority. (Domain authority is essentially your ranking from Google — you can find your Domain Authority score for free with this tool.)

There are quite a few resources you can use to figure out the “right price” to charge. This Blogger Rate Card is pretty helpful!

Again, these prices are a baseline and you can always charge more than these prices if you are an experienced/skilled copywriter or photographer.

Another type of sponsorship is a partial blog feature where you include multiple brands in one blog post. There are many ways to do this — it could be an outfits post where you include the outfits of multiple brands, it could be a sustainable shopping guide where you list out multiple brands, or it could be a “how to” guide where you include multiple brands throughout the post.

To start, I’d suggest pricing a partial feature as your full sponsored blog post price divided by how many brands you are featuring multiplied by two. This is because the link clicks will likely get divided among the brands, so each brand will get slightly less of a benefit. However, I do the multiplied by two since most people will click through to multiple brands featured in your post.

So, if you are charging $500 for a sponsored blog post, but you are creating an “Eco-Friendly Cookware Brands” guide with 10 brands, you could charge $100 per sponsored feature.

You probably already know what I’m going to say, but I’ll say it again — these prices are a baseline, and you can always charge more based on the value you are bringing the brand!

3. Website Advertising

Once your website has reached a significant number of page views and visitors, you can start to make a decent amount of money from ads on your website.

I personally do not use this method yet — however, many conscious bloggers have had success with banner ads on their site.

You can set up an account with Google AdSense to put banner ads on your website, though the quality is generally hit-or-miss, unfortunately. To get an estimate of how much money you can make with Google Ads on your website, scroll down this page and enter your region, category of your content, and monthly page views.

The highest quality ad management (in my opinion) to join is Mediavine, which is a platform only available to larger publishers and bloggers. This advertising management company requires 50,000 sessions per month minimum to get you approved with all of their advertising partners, though, so it’s something to keep in mind as you grow your blog!

4. Sell Your Own Products

In addition to earning money from sponsors, you can also offer valuable products to your audience. You could create a digital product, such as an eBook or digital course covering the topics you know the best or you could develop a set of physical products such as customized zero waste essentials or upcycled scrunchies.

If you’re not quite ready to develop a product, another way to offer value to your audience is to offer consulting or one-on-one coaching in your area of expertise, whether that’s vegan cooking or social media marketing.

You may not know which products to create or what your audience needs consulting on in the beginning. As you grow your blog, though, you’ll receive more and more questions from readers/followers, which will help you figure out what products and services would be the most valuable to your audience!

5. Set up a Patreon

Patreon is the most popular platform for conscious creators to earn an income directly from their fans. Your audience can essentially pay a monthly subscription price (which can start at even $1/month) to access your Patreon. Typically, creators offer different tiers — a low, medium, and more expensive option — with different benefits for each.

While I do not have a Patreon myself, in general, I’ve seen that the most successful creators on Patreon are those that offer exclusive content for their patrons.

Some ideas for exclusive content could be to share sponsorship/ad-free versions of your content (this makes the most sense with YouTube videos!), host patron-only Q&A sessions or other virtual events, start community discussions on the Patreon platform, send patron-only newsletters, share patron-only blog posts and conscious shopping guides, create free downloadable resources (such as a vegan meal planning checklist or capsule wardrobe guide) for your patrons, or do Patreon giveaways.

It could also be helpful to offer your audience an opportunity to give a one-time payment to you if a recurring subscription fee is not feasible for them. You can do this by sharing the links to your PayPal, Venmo, or other payment app account through your blog and social media accounts.

In Conclusion…

There is a variety of ways to earn money online with a blog once you’ve built a strong foundation (i.e. you’re delivering high-quality content and have grown your audience) and there is no single “right” way — everyone has a different combination of income streams that works for them and their platforms. You may choose to earn money exclusively through selling your own products and services and barely ever do brand promotions or you might love promoting brands and earn most of your money through sponsorships and affiliates.

And, it’s totally normal to adjust your income streams as you grow your blog! You can get started with affiliates very early on in your blogging career and then add in sponsorships, and then develop a service or product to offer your audience.

If you have a highly engaged audience, Patreon might be a perfect platform; if you have a lot of web traffic, banner ads might be a good choice; if you have strong skills in a certain area, consulting or developing digital courses might work out great.

The one rule of thumb, though, is that you should try and diversify your income streams if possible. While you don’t want to have to manage 100 different income streams, having three to five ways to make money will make your business more resilient in the long-run.

If you’re looking for more personalized advice on making money as a sustainable blogger I also offer blogger consulting services.

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You May Also Want to Check Out:

How to Start Your Own Conscious Blog

7 Strategies for Brainstorming Conscious Content Ideas

Sustainable Blogger Consulting Services

The post How to Make Money as a Sustainable Blogger: 5 Ways appeared first on Conscious Life & Style.

I’ve experienced these challenges in the past, too, but I’ve developed some strategies and turned to a few tools that have become sure-fire ways to think of new ideas that resonate with my audience and perform well on Pinterest and in search engines.

Below are 7 strategies I’ve used for coming up with content that resonates with my audience!

1. Ask Your Audience

Sounds simple, and it is. The next time you’re talking about something on social media — whether it’s hemp fabric or selling through consignment shops — ask your audience: is there anything else you’d like to know about [insert topic here]? Would this be something you’d be interested in learning more about? Do you have any questions about [insert topic here]?

2. Listen to the Common Barriers or Concerns

Another way to get insight from your audience is to simply listen. Sometimes, you don’t even need to ask — your audience might be asking you questions like: what brands are good for ___? How do you ___? Ugh, I can never ___! It’s so hard to find ____! If your audience hasn’t expressed this to you directly, take a look at Facebook Groups in your niche or look at comments on posts of publications, influencers, or brands in your niche.

Note: Though it may start off productive, spending time in the comment sections can quickly lead you down a rabbit hole. (Speaking from experience here!) So, it’s probably useful to set a timer if you decide to venture into this direction!

Finally, checking out reviews of books in your niche or products in your niche may also prove to be a source of inspiration for future content.

3. Watch Videos, Listen to Podcasts, and Attend Panels

Getting to listen to panel discussions or hear from experts in your field of interest is a great way to inspire some ideas about hot topics in your space. Usually, people working “on the ground” or working within a company structure don’t share their insider knowledge as often since they are not “influencers” and may not have a big audience online. But they often have TONS of valuable information and perspectives to share. They are seeing the trends and hearing from customers firsthand. These experts are also often well-read on industry news and well-informed about what is happening “behind the scenes”.

For instance, in the conscious fashion world, Corporate Sustainability Officers might have insights on things like which innovative fabrics are coming next to the market, what percentage of their sales are recommence, or what fashion designers are planning to do to reduce the carbon emissions of their production.

4. Think Back to Your Experiences

Chances are, you’ve been living the certain lifestyle you are talking about on your blog, podcast, or YouTube channel for longer than you’ve been writing or speaking about it. Think back to your journey and ask yourself: what challenges or obstacles did I experience? What questions did I have when I didn’t know much about this space?

5. Talk About These Topics With Friends or Colleagues

Conversations seem to always stir up new ideas! Start a conversation with another creator on Instagram over DM, chat about one of these topics with a friend who has some familiarity with the subject (or not… maybe you’ll glean some “outsider” insight), and/or join a networking group in your niche where you can meet some other people in your space to talk through these topics with.

6. Read Books Related to Your Niche

There’s no shortage of information online, but nothing compares to a solid, well-researched book. Nonfiction authors spend months diving deep into their respective topics to create educational content and typically look into research studies, scientific reports, and the like before and during their writing process.

Beyond this, the long-form nature of books allows authors to go so much deeper and further than what you’ll find on a blog or on YouTube. You’ll likely find glimpses of new ideas that are unique from what you’ve seen other creators in your niche talk about.

Another treasure trove for content ideas? The”References” pages in the back of the books you read! These pages typically go unnoticed, but they’re filled with information about reports, articles, and other great resources related to the topic you just read about.

7. Read and Watch Content Outside of Your Niche

You might be wondering how can watching a documentary or listening to a podcast about something completely different from my niche help me create content about my niche?

Hear me out on this one: some of the best ideas come out of the intersection of multiple fields. Maybe watching a dance movie as an ethical fashion blogger inspires you to think about sustainably-made leotards, tights, and costumes.

Or perhaps reading a psychology magazine as a low waste YouTuber inspires you to think about how you can grow the sustainable lifestyle movement by understanding human behavior.

The potential combinations — and content ideas — are endless!

How to Organize Your Ideas

Now that you have plenty of ideas listed out, it’s time to organize your content plans!

I love doing this through a content calendar in Google Sheets. I also find it immensely beneficial to have a promotion calendar that helps me keep track of when I’ll be sharing my content with my audience.

Looking for More Advice?

Check out this post for a step-by-step guide to starting a conscious blog and this post for tips on how to monetize a sustainable blog.

If you have more questions or want some one-on-one guidance, check out my Blogger Consulting Services.

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The post 7 Strategies for Brainstorming Conscious Content Ideas appeared first on Conscious Life & Style.

And perhaps you’re looking to earn some income from doing so as well to pay the bills and get compensated fairly for all your time and energy you’re putting into it.

A blog can be a great way to do all of the above if you invest the time and research it takes to make that blog successful.

Blogging isn’t easy and it’s definitely not a way to ‘get rich quick’. However, blogging is my passion and enables me to earn a living from what I love. I get to create content about the topics I am most passionate about, connect with like-minded people, fellow creatives, and brands, and I feel in control of my own schedule and career path.

So my friend, if you’re ready to dive in and make the investment into your future self, let’s go!

1. Find Your Unique Offering

First, zero in on what it is that you’re most interested in talking about. Zero waste? Ethical fashion? Responsible travel?

When I first started my blog, Conscious Life & Style, I was focused on ethical fashion. (In fact, I was originally going to call the blog Conscious Style but the domain was taken already, which is how the “life &” part got in there!)

After you pick the general topic, think about what will make your approach stand out.

If you’re focused on sustainability: are you going to be talking about easy low waste swaps for beginners or more advanced lifestyle changes for those a little farther along in their journies? Will you have an emphasis on DIYs that save money while saving the planet or products people can buy to preserve their time while preserving resources?

If you’re focused on responsible fashion: are you going to be talking about fair trade, locally-made, and/or eco-friendly brands? Is there a particular style you’ll focus on like sleek and minimalist, flirty and feminine, bright and artisan-made? Are you centering in on petite or plus-size fashion?

The opportunities to make your blog unique are endless. Take a notebook or a Google Doc and start brainstorming… get creative!

Remember you can always shift as you go. When I started, I focused on style-forward ethical fashion brands because I was on a mission to prove that dressing responsibly could still be fashionable. My content has shifted since then, but picking a focus to start off with will help you attract an audience and it will help with creating content that feels cohesive.

2. Pick a Domain Name

Once you’ve gotten clear on what you’ll be talking about on your blog, it’s time to pick a name for it! Brainstorm some words you’d like to use based on your offerings.

Some descriptive words to get you started: fair, conscious, ethical, eco, green, sustainable, responsible, zero waste, low waste, purpose, plant-based, regenerative, mindful, intentional, artisan, homemade, handmade, secondhand, pre-loved, slow (slow food, slow fashion, slow travel, etc.)

Some nouns to get you started: clothing, clothes, style, fashion, closet, wardrobe, life, lifestyle, DIYs, food, meals, home, and travel. Also think about if it could make sense to use your name or the name of the city you’re in. I love this especially when it forms an alliteration like “Consciously Cathy” or “Fair in Firenze”.

Your domain name doesn’t have to be literal to the topic you’re talking about, but I do think it’s helpful to have at least one word in the title that signals what you’re talking about on your platform so new readers instantly know what your blog is generally about!

As you think through some ideas, you can check with Instant Domain Search to see if the website URL you want is already taken.

If everything you want is taken, check out Lean Domain Search for some ideas on variations of domain names that are still available.

I’d also suggest searching the social media platforms you’d like to be on, like Instagram, to see if the names you’re brainstorming for your blog are already in use on there as well.

Once you find your blog name and domain, don’t buy it just yet! We’ll get there in step four.

3. Pick a Content Management System (AKA blog platform)

Now that you’ve solidified your focus for your blog, it’s time to find a home for all the great content you’re going to write!

Your content management system is essentially the backend of your blog: it’s how you write, add photos, edit, and more.

There are a bunch of content management systems (CMS) you can choose from, but I highly recommend WordPress.org. It’s the most common CMS on the internet (it powers 35% of websites worldwide) and it’s open-source, which means the functionality of WordPress is constantly improving as developers create new plugins and themes.

WordPress is also the best CMS for search engine optimization. (Optimizing for search engines is how your blog will get found via people searching the topics you’re talking about on Google.)

4. Choose Hosting Provider

A web hosting service is essentially how you’ll be able to make your website accessible on the internet. Yes, it’s as important as it sounds!

The most recommended hosting provider for WordPress is Bluehost.* (affiliate)

There are also green hosting providers, such as Green Geeks, that use renewable energy or purchase renewable energy credits to offset the energy used to power your website. I am planning to move to Green Geeks once my contract with Bluehost expires. The hosting provider even has options specifically for WordPress sites (again, why WordPress is the best choice.. makes everything down the line so much easier!)

Bluehost is super user-friendly and great for beginners. So if you want to start with Bluehost, you can also switch to a green hosting provider after a year of getting familiar with all of the tech involved with running a blog.

Pricing wise, the two have pretty similar price points for their most basic and mid-tier options. Bluehost starts at $2.95/mo for the most basic level of hosting and $5.45/mo for the mid-level. Green Geeks starts at $2.95/mo for the most basic level and $5.95 for the mid-level.

I will update this post and share what my experience is like switching to Green Geeks, like how user-friendly that hosting platform is and how much support the company provides!

5. Launch Your Site

Once you’ve gotten set up with your hosting platform, it’s time to launch your site with your domain on WordPress!

Both Bluehost and Green Geeks advertise “1-click installation” with WordPress.

Here is more information from Green Geeks on how to install WordPress on Green Geeks.

And here is more information on how to install WordPress on Bluehost.

6. Pick a Theme (Website Design)

Now we’re getting to the fun part: it’s time to pick a theme for your website! WordPress has a ton of free themes to choose from.

Some things to keep in mind: In addition to finding a theme that fits your vision aesthetically, be on the lookout for the functionality of that theme as well.

Check to see that the theme is responsive (this ensures the theme will show up properly on mobile devices), that it has strong ratings and good reviews, and that you like the layout of all of the pages that come with the theme. Some elements, like colors, are usually easily adjustable, but significant changes are not so easy.

Note: If you choose Bluehost, they will walk you through the process of selecting a theme step by step. In this case, the following steps will be useful if you want to ever change your theme.

The theme is not set in stone! You can always change the theme later. Once you’ve gotten set up with WordPress, you can check out the theme options by navigating to the lefthand bar going to “Appearance”, selecting “Themes”, and then clicking the “Add New” button.

Once you find a new theme you like and verify that it’s functional as well, click install. After you install a theme, you can do “Live Preview” by hovering over the theme and clicking “Live Preview”. If you like what you see, press the “Activate” button and that will switch your site to that theme!

Note: You might notice that there are free themes along with premium themes you have to pay for. While premium paid themes could be a nice option eventually, I don’t necessarily think it’s a requirement for getting started with blogging. I used a free theme for a year or even more when I first created Conscious Life & Style!

7. Write Your Site Title and Tagline

If you select Bluehost, it will prompt you with questions to enter in this information.

If you are using a different platform, or you want to change the title and tagline for your site at a later date, here’s how to do it.

Go to your WordPress dashboard, go to the left-hand side panel and select “Settings” –> click “General”. Below is how that screen should look.

And that covers the basics!

Now that your site is set up, start working through WordPress to edit various parts of your website. While WordPress does have a bigger learning curve than other CMS’s like Wix or Squarespace, there are SO many benefits to WordPress if you want to grow and eventually monetize your blog. And all of the various features in WordPress mean that you have a lot of capabilities at your fingertips for your own blog.

So, with that, I am wishing you all the best with the set up of your blog! For the nitty-gritty technical tutorials, there are plenty of helpful resources on YouTube. My area of expertise is more in the sustainable blogging arena. For more on this, check out the resources below.

Up Next:

How to Brainstorm Content for Your Conscious Blog

How to Make Money as a Sustainable Blogger

Have Questions? Need More Individual Support?

For one-on-one consulting with me where I can answer your most pressing questions, check out my Blogger Consulting Services.

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Ready for the next step?

Here’s a guide to brainstorming conscious content ideas

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