Want to learn how to start a mommy blog and be able to make a full-time income online as a mom blogger? Any newbie mommy can do that and this guide will show you the exact steps.
If you’re a female blogger, you must have stumbled upon at least one mommy blog with a great-looking design, a ton of Pinterest-friendly images, great reputation and impressive income reports.
Whether you’re a mom or not, or female for that matter, there’s a lot we can all learn from the mom bloggers out there.
In this article, you’ll learn why and how to start a mommy blog and make money. If you aren’t a mom, that’s okay as you can still learn how to set up a profitable blog and make money to ditch the 9 to 5 and work from home. Also, the stats about moms as a target audience is quite tempting and you might want to create content or target your ads in that direction.
Let’s see what a mommy blog is all about.
Reasons to Start a Mommy Blog and Make Money
The mommy industry is booming.
Did you know that nearly 4 million moms in the US are blogging? Not all manage to do it successfully, of course, as running a blog and building an audience are no easy things. But still, a ton of money is made in this industry and for a reason.
You can reach financial independence through blogging.
We all dream of financial independence. Whether you’re in debt, want to leave your corporate job, want to provide for your family or travel the world, online business is the way to go.
Learn how to start a mommy blog and make money, or even publish content and monetize it in any other niche you’re interested in. Big things can come out of this.
Working from home is sweet.
I’m a work-at-home blogger and love every aspect of this.
Waking up whenever you want to, setting your own working hours, choosing your clients, writing on topics you love, using social media to your advantage, and seeing the money coming in from multiple income streams.
The advantages of self-employment are plenty and starting a blog is one great way to get there.
Moms are a great audience.
Did you know that US moms spend more than 8 hours per day online, according to IAB?
They have a lot of time on their hands, spend most of the day at home, are engaged online and ready to spend money. That makes them a great audience once you grab their attention with a professional mom blog.
Now, let’s see how to start a mommy blog and make money.
How to Start a Mommy Blog
This article contains affiliate links.
1. Set up your new blog.
To make your site live, you need a hosting provider (a trusted company providing the server space for your website) and a content management system like WordPress that allows you to publish and distribute content with a few clicks. No coding knowledge, no need to be tech-savvy.
I created Let’s Reach Success without knowing anything about building sites or blogging and it’s still one of the best decisions I’ve ever taken.
If you want to start a professional WordPress site, then WPX Hosting would be ideal for your hosting needs. It’s currently my favorite hosting company (offering optimized hosting for WordPress sites) and I couldn’t be happier to host Let’s Reach Success with them. Here’s my honest WPX Hosting review.
And here’s the free course I created on how to start your blog today:
2. Create the most important pages on your mommy blog.
Start with the About page. Share your story, add a nice image, and don’t be afraid to be transparent.
When readers land on your blog, they will want to know who you are. If they resonate with you, they will go subscribe to your newsletter, read your articles, and more. Here’s how my About page looks like.
You’d also want to have a Contact page in place. Some of my other important pages include my Portfolio and Freelance Writing Services (as I’m also earning money freelancing), a page for sponsors and advertisers, (more on how to earn money from sponsorships below), and my income reports (I share all my earnings each month).
3. Get on Pinterest and start Pinning.
Pinterest has 200 million monthly users who are actively seeking helpful ideas and inspiration. 40% of these people have a housefly income of $100K and 70% of them are women. They are shoppers by nature and many admit they go to Pinterest before making a purchase or use it as a way to get an idea of what to buy next.
More than 60% of Pinners discover new brands and products thanks to Pinterest. And 1 out of 2 makes a purchase after seeing a promoted Pin. How great is that!
You can use Pinterest to form relationships with other mom bloggers, to gain a ton of traffic to your website, to build your online presence, and double your income.
So many people make money online without having to get Pinners to their site but by directly promoting affiliate links on the social network. More about this below.
So create your Pinterest business account today for free, optimize your profile, create your first boards, and add Pinterest-friendly images to all your blog posts (like the one in this guide on how to start a mommy blog and make money).
Don’t be afraid to re-pin other people’s content. That’s what makes you a curator and it’s what the platform was designed for. Check out my best blogging tips for Pinterest to see more strategies that work.
I recently got to over 450K months views on Pinterest and am pretty active there now. Feel free to connect with me.
Here’s an example of a great mommy blog that also does great on Pinterest. That’s McKinzie from Moms Make Cents.
4. Design your blog.
There are plenty of free WordPress themes out there that look stunning. Once you feel more comfortable blogging, though, it’s worth getting a premium one.
My recommendation is to check out the themes by ThemeForest. They are with clean code and will lead to great performance and speed of your site. Together with that, you get unique features and support from the creator.
The theme I’m using for Let’s Reach Success is Mag from Theme Forest. I saw improvement in performance right after I started using it. I wrote about it in this post.
Themes usually go with a fantastic drag & drop editor and you can see changes in real time. When designing your site and playing with the Theme Settings, consider:
- The main colors you want to use;
- What you want to display on the homepage;
- Whether or not you’ll have a sidebar;
- Add a logo;
- Create your menu and place the most important page in it;
- Add some elements to the footer of the site;
- Choose the blog layout.
Here’s a screenshot of my dashboard with just one of the many options my theme offers.
5. Write and optimize your cornerstone content.
To learn how to start a mommy blog that makes money, you’ll need to attract readers and build your name in the niche with great content. That means writing long-form articles with a ton of practical advice which are also optimized for search engines.
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, doesn’t need to be complicated. But by knowing the basics (such as how often to include a keyword in your post, what title tag and meta description to include, how to do internal and external linking), you can appear in the top results on Google for the phrase you are targeting.
That means more traffic to your mommy blog and the right people coming to read your content.
One great free tool that can help is the Yoast SEO Plugin. Head to Plugins -> Add new, and look for it in the directory. Install and active it. Then, tackle its settings. Here’s a guide on that.
It will help you connect your site with Google and verify it, define how to appear in search engines, evaluate the SEO of each article you write and add information for social media. This one free tool offers a ton of flexibility and follows the best SEO practices.
For each post, it gives you keyword density, readability analysis, advice on what else to do to optimize the post well, missing elements, etc.
These are the steps to take if you’re a newbie mommy blogger or just want to take your current blog to the next level. Let’s move onto the part where you monetize it. Here’s what you need to know:
How to Monetize Your Mom Blog
To understand how to start a mommy blog and make money blogging, you’ll need to see the different monetization strategies that work best in this niche. Here are some tips:
1. Monetize your mommy blog through affiliate marketing.
Many mom bloggers and online influencers skip over affiliate marketing. They either think it’s too hard, that it’s a waste of time, that they will turn followers away, or that their followers just won’t be interested.
However, if you’re not earning money through affiliate marketing, you are leaving money on the table.
Although the basic concept is easy (link to other people’s products and services and earn a commission each time you make a sale), it’s actually all about creating systems, building trust, writing a ton of content and doing a lot of work. So I decided to purchase an online course from one of the best in the niche – Michelle from Making Sense of Cents.
She built a 6-figure blog without millions of visitors or selling her soul. She’s now earning $50K/month solely through affiliate marketing so she shows what she’s doing. And she has created a course about it sharing her best tips.
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is a step-by-step affiliate marketing strategy course that shows you how to increase your affiliate income and make more money blogging. It’s also the first online course I ever purchased and totally worth the investment.
In it, she covers:
- What affiliate marketing is and how it works
- Why affiliate marketing is great
- The exact steps she’s taken to earn over $300,000 from a single blog post
- How to pick the right affiliate products to promote
- How to increase conversions
- How to build trust and not lose followers
- Required disclosures that you need to know about
- The one major tool you need for affiliate marketing
- Different strategies to use to promote your affiliate products
- How to use Pinterest to succeed at affiliate marketing.
If you too want to start a blog to make money and want to monetize through affiliate marketing, check out Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. (this is my affiliate link as that’s a course I’ve taken myself and which I believe in).
2. Create your own digital products.
Some time ago I wrote a giant post where I go through the most popular and profitable digital products to help you take the decision which one to build for your first product. Here’s the article.
It covers all you need to know. As for why investing the time to create your own product and sell it is worth it, here are a few reasons.
- You have full control over it.
- It’s passive income – you build it now and make money for years to come.
- It improves your reputation in the blogging world (not everyone has their own products).
- It’s something you can refer to from any piece of content you create.
For mommy blogs, the 2 best things seem to be an eBook and an online course.
Especially with courses, there’s a lot of potential to make money as other moms are eager to learn how to do what you’re about to teach them.
I recently purchased and took my first course simply because the person who created it was doing what I’m after – making money from affiliate marketing.
And a great way to promote your course again is Pinterest.
One successful mommy blogger is Elna from Twins Mommy. And aside from giving away printables for subscribes and teaching others how to start a blog, she’s also selling courses.
Don’t forget to take care of your company’s finances too.
3. Make money with sponsored posts.
I’m a big fan of sponsored posts as it’s a monetization strategy that worked well for me. You can check how I started making a living from sponsored posts here.
Usually, all it takes it to create a reputable blog with a ton of content on it and advertisers will start reaching out to you. Once you get the hang of it, you can start doing cold pitching yourself and find new sponsorships.
Not every blog is designed for that, though, so you should experiment with different monetization strategies to find out how to start a mommy blog and make money.
4. Freelance your way to $1000/Month.
Sometimes, it’s much easier to make your first money freelancing and have some stable income before you begin earning from your blog. That’s what I did.
In the early days of my business, half of my income was coming from Let’s Reach Success (through sponsored posts). The other half – from freelance writing.
All experts suggest that freelancing (or getting paid for your services online) is the quickest way to jumpstart your career in the digital world. You could be doing it on the side while growing your mommy blog.
Freelancing has given me the freedom and independence to live the life I want. Here are the exact steps I took.
Additional Tips to Make It with Your Mommy Blog
Network with other bloggers.
Do that on Pinterest and through Facebook Groups for mom bloggers. Visit forums and participate. Write guest posts for other publications. Email influencers that you mention in your posts and ask them to share the piece.
There are many ways to connect with others and thus get the word about your mommy blog out. One thing that’s a must if being helpful.
Keep publishing new content.
You have to blog consistently if you want to see how to start a mommy blog and make money.
Aim at 2 solid blog posts per week so that your readers know when to expect new articles on your blog and so that you have something to share with your newsletter subscribers. No one likes blogs that aren’t updated frequently.
With that being said, once you have more blog posts in your archives, don’t forget to go back to old ones and update them. That’s what I’m currently doing with Let’s Reach Success as there are over 1700 articles on it. So what was published and relevant years ago will need an update.
Diversify your income.
Your first goal is to start making money with your mommy blog and that will be one income stream. Once it’s stable, though, you will want to diversify your blog income to feel more secure and grow as a blogger.
Say, if you’re earning through affiliate marketing, you can create an online course for beginners, like Michelle did with Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.
If your mommy blog lands sponsored post opportunities, nothing stops you from writing an eBook on how others can do it too. A digital product will also contribute to your personal brand.
Last but not least, you can also start freelancing and offering your new skills. Many mom bloggers who do well on Pinterest eventually become Pinterest managers for clients and can earn thousands of dollars monthly by growing other people’s accounts on Pinterest.
Here on Let’s Reach Success, and as you can see from my detailed monthly income reports, I make money mainly from freelancing and sponsored posts. But I also sell my books on Amazon and Smashwords and do affiliate marketing. So I never know where the next payment will come from. That’s one of the amazing things about having an online business.
Final Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed my beginner’s guide on how to start a mommy blog and make money. I’ll be coming back to update it as I learn new strategies that work for mom bloggers.
Good luck. If you’re ready to begin your journey, head to my free blogging guide and set up your site today.
And don’t forget to pin the image to share this info with more aspiring mommy bloggers: