How Long Does It Take To Make A Viable Side Income Blogging?

Most, but not all, bloggers these days also host ads on their sites in order to generate, hopefully, some passive income from their efforts.  And with good reason: most of us bloggers (I’ll speak for the ones in the personal finance space) are hardworking, care about our sites and our readers, and it’s right to think that one should be rewarded for providing useful advice and information.

But at some point in everyone’s blogging career, maybe once you’ve finally got your first adsense check, or maybe before you even start a blog, one begins to ask “how long is it going to take to make $X dollars from this blog?” You’ve got your blog set up, you’ve been posting regularly, interacting with readers, and you’ve begun to make some consistent money with adsense and perhaps even other affiliate or PPC plans.

I’ve been running MoneyEnergy for about 10 months now, and all I can tell you is that this process is going to be different for every blog.  It took me three months before I saw any income I liked (although those first clicks are always exciting), and I didn’t make enough for an adsense check until halfway through the fifth month.  It’s going to depend on a number of factors.

• traffic levels
• traffic sources
• how often you post
• the quality of your posts
• number of comments left
• your interaction with readers and other bloggers
• advertisers who contact you
• your theme

But one thing I’ve been reading a lot lately from other bloggers is that blog income is notoriously volatile and unpredictable. From day-to-day, for example, your adsense earnings can go wildly up and down for seemingly no reason.  RSS subscribers can jump up and down for reasons out of your control, too.  Then other days, you might receive a lot of recognition and do well with income and traffic all at once.  That’s part of what keeps it interesting.

MoneyEnergy sailed past its initial goals, but I’ve been slack at setting a second set of goals for it in concrete.  My next goal, for example, is to consistently make an average of 500 visits/day, preferably by the time the blog reaches its 1-yr anniversary. As for income, it’s reached a nice level, but has plateaued (temporarily, I hope).  I don’t post precise figures here since it’s against some advertisers’ policies. But I can tell you that although it’s impressing me, it’s still not enough to do more than pay a few bills per month.  Still, that’s a nice improvement on where it was a year ago, which was at ZERO.  If you want to take a look at another example of numbers, check out the earnings at The Almost Millionaire (I don’t think Brandon will mind my posting this, as it’s up on his site, after all!).  If you want a good introduction to getting started making money blogging, check out Pinyo’s Blogthority, it’s a great resource.

I’m writing about this today because my blog is slowly starting to become a meaningful source of side income for me.  Now that its earnings are consistent, I can start to budget it into my overall finances and make plans for the money.  Originally I was using my blog income to fund investment projects, such as the Intel stock purchase I made.  Now with the recession deepening, I’m diverting it towards paying off debt.  Since blog money is a bit unpredictable anyway, and thus a somewhat “riskier” source of income, I think it’s best to hedge that risk by directing it into a channel that’s going to give you immediate benefits (and in my case, I hope, permanent, as I plan not to rack these cards up ever again), such as paying off your debt.

I may not know how much longer it will take to reach my next monetary goal with this blog, but I can control the income it makes me right now.  What about you, how are you planning on using your online income?  Do you just mix it in with the rest of your bills, or do you reserve it only for investing, even in this recession?  How long did it take you to get your blog income up to a “decent” level, whatever that might be for you?

Hopefully, at the one-year mark, or the 1.5 year mark, I’ll be able to come back to this with a significant update on the progress.  I’ll let you know!

• Top Entrecard Droppers - November
• Accomplishments and Success April 2009
• How Many Economists Does It Take To Build A Successful Blog? One, if it's The Weakonomist
• The Four Pillars of Wealth - A Great Job, Family and Two Successful Blogs: A Conversation with Four Pillars
• Making MORE Money and More Meaning

• New Years Resolution Three: Double Blogging Goals
• The Realities of Blogging for Money
• Start 2010 Right! Free Money and Prizes
• Five for Friday - January 16
• Canadian Finance Blog’s 1 Year Anniversary!

Tagged as: blog income, make money blogging, passive income, side income