Learn how I made $500 from 1 sponsored post on a blog that gets only 4K monthly page views, and what my next steps are for growing its income:
The sponsored blogging industry is very interesting.
Most of the question members of Fearless Bloggers, our community and membership for bloggers, ask are about this as there is little to no information about it out there and yet so many bloggers are earning from this.
Also, as you might know, it’s always been my main income stream, I have a lot to say on the topic, I have a very detailed and strategic course that teaches you how to make money from sponsored content on your blog called the Blog Sponsorship Boss and I can pretty much answer any question you have about this. But today, I want to share something new that happened to me in terms of sponsorships, which is also a big milestone. Ideally, it can give you hope that you too can monetize this way regardless of how small or new your blog is.
About my other blog
I run a second site, other than Let’s Reach Success, and inside the membership, I share all about it (in the monthly income reports, but also anytime this comes up). I won’t get into it now, but in a nutshell, that site currently has 71 blog posts, almost all of them are AI-generated and highly optimized, and in the last 3 months, the traffic has been growing steadily.
I still haven’t reached 5k page views a month though, but I’m getting there.
I treat this blog as an experiment, and only in the last months did I start publishing content there consistently. The traffic growth is a result of that, as well as how well the topics I choose are doing on Pinterest. There’s a separate business account I created for that blog, and it’s doing very, very well.
The traffic is already coming from two different places, search engines and Pinterest. This is what I call the ideal blog traffic formula, as it’s one short-term traffic source, Pinterest, which can help you get visitors to a brand new blog, and one long-term one, Google, which is all about quality and optimized content that you can rank well and then update over time to rank even better.
My goals for it
One of the many business goals I have for this year, which I also share openly with members of Fearless Bloggers, as well as my progress or lack of it month after month, is to get that second blog to 10k page views, so I can apply for one ad network I have in mind.
Ultimately, the goal is to turn it into a source of passive income and earn monthly revenue from it. But first, I also want to see its very first earnings. Those came just a few days ago, when I saw an unexpected payment from another ad network.
I’ve tested it for a few months, but I didn’t like the user experience, so I actually removed it. Turns out, I was earning a bit since then, and as the traffic grew, that was more. Not to mention that joining a new ad network may take time till you set everything up and actually start making money, as well as receive the funds, which can be months later.
So that income, which was around $22, was the first money I ever made with that blog, and I was happy about it. I even put the ads back to see how much I can make now that the traffic is more. I also set the intention of accepting sponsorships for the site, regardless of how small it is.
Signs the site was ready to accept sponsorships
It still had the main elements in place:
- enough content;
- new articles being added there regularly, which is something search engines and sponsors take into consideration;
- the domain has existed for around 2 years already, and even though I wasn’t actively working on the site for the first year, it’s still a good sign that it’s been around for a while;
- itt has gained some domain authority naturally;
- there’s an active Pinterest account that is doing well;
- there’s a proven record of traffic growth in the last months, even if that’s 3 months. It still counts.
That gave me enough confidence and data to create a page for advertisers and a media kit that I can start sharing with brands. These are two of the elements I recommend you have if you want to earn from sponsorships. Even if you will mostly work with sponsored post networks, which are the platforms you add your site to, and then brands can find you from there, you still need a media kit, even though it’s not added to those sites.
I usually share it in emails whenever I’m asked if I’d accept a sponsored post, or whenever I pitch someone myself.
So I just did that for the new site, and what I began doing is mention it to any brand I’m already working with for my main site.
Reputation and relationships
See, the sponsored blogging industry is all about reputation and relationships.
I’ve built that as I’ve been around for 10 years. I have regular clients, and new ones find me all the time. They reach out to me, I have fixed packages I work with, and I set the conditions. I can recognize if someone is scammy, I get paid in advance most of the time, and I enjoy the people I work with.
But that took a long time, and a lot of trial and error. The result of that is my course The Blog Sponsorship Boss, and I can’t recommend it enough in case you want to learn all about sponsorships for bloggers. There’s a lot that goes into it, and inside the program, I teach you everything such as getting your blog ready for sponsors, designing your media kit, page for sponsors, and packages, writing a sponsored post, setting the terms of your future collaborations, and finding brands and paid opportunities.
You also get the exact email I use to pitch brands, and a list of sponsored content platforms that you can join right away. We also cover the uncomfortable aspect of it related to money, and what’s legal and what isn’t in the industry. I share with you the truth about how much you should charge, when to raise your prices, and how to do it right.
The last module is all about negotiating your rates with new clients, and making sure you get paid every time and on time.
Another way to pick my brain on this, and anything blogging related, is to join us inside Fearless Bloggers, where you can ask any question and get strategic content on blog traffic and monetization every month.
There is a video training in there, in which I take you behind the scenes of two big collaborations I had with brands, and all the details, literally. I take you inside my inbox, because that’s where the communication is happening. You see what articles I wrote for them, how we negotiated the terms, how much I got paid, and anything else.
Also, in the monthly income reports I create for members, I share exactly how much I’ve earned from this income stream the month before, and all the content I’ve published on both my blogs, including which of the articles are a sponsored post. Because I know aspiring bloggers are curious about that, but it’s never sure, not everyone discloses that.
So that’s why in the monthly income reports, I really want to review it all, and tell you what type of content each article is.
If you join the community, which is currently at a very low price, you get access to everything happening in my business and to a lot of super strategic content that is already waiting for you in the membership. You can always request any topic you feel like, and I’ll create new content based on that because I just love doing it.
That’s definitely the best way to work with me this year, and just a great opportunity to level up, to be surrounded by others going through the same challenges, and after the same goals, and to form connections in an industry that is rather lonely.
Now, let’s get to our topic today.
How I landed my first sponsored post for the new blog
I just had another successful collaboration with a client last month (on my main site, Let’s Reach Success). It was for one sponsored post and I made $500 from it.
In the last email to them, I also mentioned that I’m starting to accept sponsorships on my other blog, and I linked to it. They not just showed interest, but wanted to move forward with it right away, and work with the same pricing conditions, which was beyond what I expected.
I had just created my media kit for that site the days before, and the rates were lower than what I have for Let’s Reach Success, not to mention that most of the content is created using AI.
But that’s how it goes in online business sometimes. There are great brands you can work with, and they have the budget for it. So I went ahead and wrote another article for them, this time there was no need for a review as we’ve already built trust, so I got paid in advance again, and I published it today.
That means, in the last few days, I made a total of $522 from the second blog I ran, and it wasn’t planned. I didn’t prepare for it that much. I expected this to happen months from now actually, but anything is possible as a blogger.
I understand that this might not happen often, and that it’s because I formed relationships with people already, and that this client, in particular, first reached out to me for my other website, which is a much bigger one. But I just wanted to show you that you never know when and how your efforts will pay off, so it’s always worth working on your blog.
Also read: 11 Years of Blogging + The Power of Written Content
Income opportunities are everywhere.
Making that first revenue from a new site is a very special moment. It gives you the permission to dream bigger and to decide to make that a monthly goal.
Now, in my case, to pitch more clients about my second site, to use that first sponsored post as proof that another brand has already worked with me and trusted me, to publish more content and grow the traffic, to get to 10k page views, to have different income streams, and ultimately, to be more financially independent.
But what I love about this the most is that it shows you that it’s possible for you too.
How I grow this new site, and the fact that it’s mostly with AI, allows me to test different things. Because Let’s Reach Success has existed for 11 years now, and that’s a totally different story. But most of you are just starting their websites now, and looking for ways to grow and monetize them,
So I’m also doing that, and I share it all inside the membership. It’s a very friendly, and safe, and intimate space where we can discuss the challenges of blogging, but also share our wins, and strategize, and share our new content, and support each other.
So if you need any help with your blogging business, I’m confident that you can find a lot of value inside Fearless Bloggers. Let me know if you have any questions, specifically about sponsored blogging, or about any of my products. You can always reach out and just ask me.
Inside the membership, there is also a chat box, so you can just use that and talk to me anytime if you like. As one of the members said recently, this is the closest it gets with me to one-on-one coaching in terms of blogging.
So that’s what I wanted to share with you today. I’m very excited to see how much more I can grow that second blog.
My annual goal for it was actually $4,000. Now this is not just possible, but I can also exceed it. We’re talking about creating regular passive income streams though, so I’m aware that this one-time collaboration for $500 might not happen again this year, but it’s a great start obviously.
I can’t wait to monetize in different ways. Affiliate marketing is always an option. I can always include more affiliate links in the existing content.
How much content I publish on that blog
And if you’re wondering how much I publish there, my goal is 15 to 20 new articles every month. I’m usually busy with many other things and I don’t really get to it, but that remains my goal in terms of content creation.
Believe it or not, it’s all done using ChatGPT. This is not how I do it for Let’s Reach Success for different reasons, but I just wanted to experiment with the second site.
And yes, it’s possible. It’s possible to rank your articles, to get sponsors, to grow a website, to be trusted by search engines. Although things are changing in the industry now, and I don’t know how that’s going to be even a few months from now, but for now it’s working.
I still edit the content though. I stand by anything I publish, and technically it is unique, but I also want it highly optimized. So that’s another thing I’m experimenting with.
Every blog post on that site is optimized for a keyword phrase. I also create Pinterest images regularly, which means not just one time the moment I publish the post, but also I go back to it sometimes and pin it again. I actually often leave the original pin inside the blog post and just create a new one and add it directly from Pinterest.
I also like to target different keywords for the same topic inside Pinterest, because obviously the blog post itself can be optimized for one main term. It can still rank for any synonyms you’ve included in the content, that happens naturally, but when it comes to Pinterest, you can just create different pins for any similar keyword and just link it to that post.
I’m very happy with how the Pinterest account for that site is doing. It’s becoming an asset on its own. When I present the website to sponsors, this can change the whole deal. They see that the traffic to a new blog post, while not guaranteed, is highly likely, and they just want to see potential.
If it’s growing now, it will probably continue growing.
A few things I’m doing differently though are that I allow permanent link placement. For Let’s Reach Success, that’s not the case.
It only is with more expensive packages, that’s why I have different ones. Usually, the link stays for just one year, whether that’s inside the blog post or just link placement, which means adding a link to an existing blog post. So it’s for one year.
Not every brand is happy with that. We need to negotiate things sometimes, but for my other website, because it’s small and new and I’m just starting to work with brands, I allow permanent posts and permanent links.
I think many more sponsors will be interested in that this year, and I can’t wait to monetize it even better. So I hope this helps you. I hope this inspires you.
Final words
I know many of you are hesitant to monetize in this exact way. You feel more comfortable with advertising, affiliate marketing, and digital products, but it’s possible that sponsorships work for you better than anything else. That was the case for me.
It just happened naturally. I’ve made all the mistakes in the book. I was once charging ridiculously low rates. I had clients who never paid. They just disappeared. The communication was really bad.
The conditions were not set. I didn’t have strong enough boundaries, and it took many years to optimize my process, to learn what works best and what works for me, to see how the industry actually is, because that’s happening behind the scenes.
It’s happening inside marketplaces, also called sponsored post networks or blogger networks, or inside your inbox. And that’s why there is not much information about it out there, which is another reason I just had to create The Blog Sponsorship Boss.
So, are you ready to work with sponsors and publish your first sponsored post?
Prefer to listen to this article instead? Tune into the episode below:
Get Updates: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More
