Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase .
Are you sick and tired of reading all of the amazing posts by people leading lives #soblessed. Allegedly making millions of dollars per year simply by blogging for approx one hour a week. ME TOO!
I set out on a quest of learning how to make money online for free and, although my blog is still in its infancy, I thought I would share what I have learned with you so far.
This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full affiliate disclosure for more information.
Making money online. Which direction should you take?
Nothing in life is free. Let’s get real for a minute.
First I needed a laptop. You can’t do anything online without some sort of computer and, given I have a teenage son who spends every waking minute on the home computer I didn’t really have any choice. I didn’t have a ton of money and so I opted for a reconditioned Lenovo T430 from my local geek squad (shout out to My Tech guys). $671.11
I originally had a domain through Go Daddy.com, for two years : this costs me $26.23
Hosting? You can’t get your message out if you don’t have hosting. I went for Bluehost through a different blog site link because it gave me WordPress for free. I thought that was a great deal… $95.28
Now – to make Bluehost work efficiently you need to purchase Jetpack or you will struggle.. $60.00
(Edit – Jetpack can be free to use depending on your package and theme!)
How will you collect email sign ups for your awesome content and send lovely reports as free gifts to your awesome tribe of loyal followers? There is a variety available but I needed a specific company for another project I’m involved in so it was Sendlane.com for me. I now have this free for 6 months due to my “other” project but otherwise.. $300.00
(Edit – I have now moved to Mailerlite which is awesome and free for our first 1000 subscribers)
Self help books: Blogging for dummies, Problogger Secrets; WordPress – teach yourself visually; Pinterest marketing for Dummies; Photoshop for dummies; Saving money any way you can; Internet marketing from the real experts; the Debt free graduate; Rich Dad Poor Dad… that’s in one month! $181.56
So here I am – one month in and already invested $1,334.18.
I don’t like the look of the site, the links aren’t working properly, I’ve still go no idea how to actually collect email addresses or how to monetize the darn thing; the books are all but useless (or is it the operator?) and I went down to three days a week at my job so I could spend time getting it right. Not looking good you would say.
Why is everyone trying to sell me something?
I wanted information. I wanted help. I wanted “How to’s” that were specific to my problem. What I got was a whole lot of teasing and a requirement to give my email out to a whole lot of sites in return for, well, a whole lot of nothing.
It seemed to me that every website or fellow blogger that I visited wanted something from me first (whether subscribers or cash) and that’s when it dawned on me. These guys were in exactly the same boat as me when they started and they have dragged their way up to the dizzying heights of $100,000 per month through hard work, blood, sweat and tears and now they’re getting paid for their efforts – you’re darn tootin sista!
It was naive and perhaps a little rude of me, to expect this wealth of knowledge for free and to be able to scale the ladder so easily, skipping steps and missing the pitfalls because this road had already been paved.. just for me.
Given my already sickening cash outflow netted against zero cash inflow I started to look for reviews of my potential purchases and sign ups and that is when I found the Pot of Gold. I was reading a down to earth, honest review for Clickbank University from a fellow who seemed to know what he was talking about, having personally experienced what he was talking about. His recommendations seemed genuine and sincere but It still seemed to good to be true and so with great skepticism I wandered onto the Wealthy Affiliate website and started poking around.
Why did no one tell me about this sooner?
What I’ve noticed so far about the world of making money online is that they do love their secrets. Like Pinterest – the creator will give you just enough for you to think you can go it alone BUT there’s one tiny but vital ingredient missing and so your Pinterest fail is always epic (again – that could be just me right?)
Wealthy Affiliate.com is a platform like no other. First of all it is free. Let me say that again FREE. There are step by step tutorials and practice assignments to get you up and running and blogging like you’ve been doing it all of your life. Each stage of training progresses you through from choosing a theme, purchasing a domain and having it hosted (by the way – the hosting is free too) to adding images, understanding SEO and writing keyword rich content right; through to monetizing and all the steps in between.
It’s a four step process:
1. Choose Niche – they will help you and also give you ways to search profitable niches to explore
2. Build Website – no experience needed. I’m serious. Plus on hand help from support and their Ambassadors
3. Attract visitors – remember me saying I don’t know how to get people to sign up? I did that training lesson today and have three new subscribers
4. Earn Revenue – how to add affiliate links, your disclosure policy to keep it legal, etc, the best affiliate sites for newbies and so on.
You can see my site is not loaded with ads and pop ups because I’m quite serious when I say this – that drives me nuts!
If I promote anything on this blog ever you can be 100% assured it is because I use it personally and I love it. If it’s not good enough for me then it’s not good enough for you.
One week was enough to convince me.
I used the site and worked my way through the tutorials building a blog website from scratch. My first two posts were indexed by google (following the advice on writing content). I added widgets and plugins (WHAT??); I found royalty free images (another tutorial); I joined affiliate marketing sites and started looking for what would be right for me and my site because, after all, I do want to earn an income from this ($100,000 a month would be great #soblessed ). At this stage the whole thing had cost me zero dollars but then I made the decision to purchase a Dot Com and move away from my Dot Ca site. I purchased my Dot Com through Wealthy Affiliates and it was the cheapest I’ve ever seen…anywhere…period. So now I was in for … $14.99 but I have my first asset. I own a Dot Com business.
Had I started out here I would have saved $303.07, saved a month of heartache and been a lot further ahead. Sigh. Hard lessons.
Where’s the catch?
Well, there really isn’t one. I looked up reviews online and the only negative ones were paid Ads promoting an alternative platform. OK then – I’m not buying that baloney.
There is an option to upgrade to a Premium account (of course there is – how else would they finance the site?) but it is purely that, an option. It’s not necessary. I however have decided that- at $19 for the first month and I can cancel anytime, I’m jumping in with both feet. By dropping my Dot Ca, Bluehost and jet pack for the old site and by further savings of opting for yearly instead of monthly this whole Platform, with it’s hosting and Plethora of workshops, training classrooms and community support will cost me $20 a month. TWENTY DOLLARS A MONTH. Say What??
My only ongoing expense now will be for more Dot Coms to grow my empire, Bwa Ha Ha Ha.
If your a Noob and you want to get going but are lost in the minefield of How or Where or Why then Go check it out. It won’t cost you a dime unless you want it to. I promise. You wanted to know how to make money online for free, well there you go. I just told ya!
Here’s my affiliate link and as I said, I won’t promote something I’m not using and loving.
XO
Anna
Hello Anna.
I just wanted to thank you for doing this blog. Like you, I have been trying to set up my own blog for quite some time and had as good as given up until a friend of mine recommended your site. I dont know about you but when i was at school we didnt have computers so learning how to use one was a challenge in itself. You have given me a second wind and I intend to follow your lead and try to work my way through the minefield of paid blogging. For that Anna, I thank you and I wish you the very best of luck.
Kind regards,
Paula