Monetize Your Platform

Tell me if this sounds familiar… In a rare moment of alone time—probably in the bi-monthly shower you manage to squeeze in between lunch and the endless stream of poopy diapers—the stars align, lightning strikes, an apple falls (where’d THAT come from?), and you have an idea. You’ve been around the block long enough to know that a great idea needs actual customers to be successful. You press a bunch of buttons and ask your tribe for feedback, and even ask them if they’d buy something like that. They respond with over-the-moon enthusiasm, and you know you’ve got a surefire hit on your hands. Next, you pour yourself into writing, filming, or manufacturing the perfect product. In addition to pouring all of your time andRead More

Ad networks can be a very effective and relatively low-effort way to monetize your blog. But, when you are just getting started, trying to figure out the ins and outs can also be a little bit confusing. Thus, today I thought I’d put together a quick & easy tutorial. For starters, Ad networks are companies that sell ad space on any sort of internet real estate, like a blog or a website. You supply the real estate, the ad network sells that real estate to a company that wants to place an ad, and you get a percentage of the sale. Think of it like renting a room in your house, but all you have to worry about is providing the room. The ad networkRead More

I‘ve never been shy about sharing what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to my own business. I’ve been blogging since 2010, and in the seven years since I first founded Living Well Spending Less®, I’ve somehow managed to build a thriving 7-figure business, as well as become the New York Times bestselling author of five books, create an online course called Elite Blog Academy™, and create the Living Well Planner®. And while saying it like that, all in one quick sentence, makes it sound like it was all easy, and even like I knew exactly what I was doing all along the way, the reality is anything but! You see, when I first started my blog, it couldn’t even be considered an onlineRead More

Online courses seem to be everywhere these days, don’t they? Regardless of your interests, it’s hard to scroll through Facebook without seeing at least one opportunity to enroll. From Teachable to Udemy to Lynda and a million options in between, self-paced learning has literally exploded in the past few years. So what does this mean for you? Well, if you are a blogger, it’s possible you’ve already benefitted from at least a few of these online trainings, and perhaps you are beginning to see all the value that online courses have to offer. And maybe you are at the point where you’ve moved on from the basics. You’ve started building an audience of engaged readers, and you’ve created a ton of really valuable content. PerhapsRead More

One of the most common questions I hear from our EBA students is this: When is the right time to monetize my blog? And my answer to that question is always pretty simple–as soon as possible….as long as you’ve laid the groundwork first! After all, blogging is hard work, and I tend to believe that the sooner you are getting paid for your efforts, the easier it will be to stay motivated to keep going, especially when the going gets rough (and it will, at some point!) Now, of course, making money from your blog doesn’t always happen on day 1, or even on day 100, especially because a lot of bloggers are hesitant to monetize at all. They worry monetizing will make them lookRead More

A lot of bloggers–or would be bloggers–look at blogging as a way to launch a writing or speaking career. After all, these days, as most publishers and book agents will tell you, if you want to write a book, you have to have a platform. Or maybe for you, it’s the other way around–you’ve already started your blog and begun building your platform, and now you’d like to write a book of your own. It just seems like the next logical step. Either way, at some point you will (hopefully) finish writing said book. And while you might think the hard part is over, (after all, what could be harder than pouring your heart and soul into crafting an amazing book?), the reality is thatRead More