Read and watch their content

This one is definitely a given and must if you aren’t already doing this. Creating quality content on a regular basis takes a lot of time and effort, and it really does mean a lot when you take time out of your day to read a post or two. If your favorite influencer has a Youtube channel or email list, go ahead and subscribe to those platforms as well. Every little bit really does help your favs!

Like, comment, save

If you like someone’s content, take it a step further by liking, commenting, and saving their social media or blog posts. You don’t have to write back an entire paragraph, but if the influencer asks a question, respond back to it. It’s an awesome way to support their content and get a conversation going. Plus, nowadays Instagram and other social media platforms will prioritize your feed based on the accounts that you interact with the most.

Shout out on Instagram stories

One way to really support an influencer is to shout out their content or page on your social media platforms. Share why you follow them, what their content means to you, and anything else that you can think of. On the flip side as a content creator, it’s a great way to get your followers to go follow an account that you’re loving and strike up a conversation with your audience.

Tell your friends

This one is an easy one. If you have a friend or two who you think would really enjoy the influencer’s content, introduce them and share why you enjoy following their content. Want to do more than just talk about the influencer, send your friend a few posts so that they can get acquainted. Bloggers create their content to help people so if they can help one more person, they’ll definitely appreciate you for sending them their way.

If you want to buy something, use their links

One way that influencers and content creators make money is by providing links to their audience of items and products that they are loving.  Sales through those links provide a little bit of money to the influencer that doesn’t impact your experience or price whatsoever. So if you find an item that you love through your favorite content creator, purchase it through their link and help them out!

Suggest potential content ideas

In the world of social media, there is a lot of pressure to stay consistent in producing high-quality content for your audience. Obviously, most of the ideas come from the person themselves, but it really doesn’t hurt at all for you to send them a DM or email asking them to cover a certain topic or to answer a question that you have. The whole purpose of a blogger or influencer is to produce content that you find helpful and valuable. By you sending in a potential content idea, it really helps lifts the load off the content creator and gives them something to work off from.

Enter in their giveaways

If you see your favorite content creator hosting a giveaway, take a few minutes to enter in the giveaway if it’s a prize that interests you. Giveaways can kind of hard to put together, and it’ll mean so much to them to see people excited about winning a prize. This idea is especially important if the giveaway is sponsored by a brand! Even if you don’t want to win the prize, share the giveaway on your social media or to your friend group that may want to win.

Purchase their courses and physical products

Some bloggers will start to branch out into creating online courses or physical products for their audience.  If you see them doing this, support them if the product resonates with you! Courses and product take a lot of time to develop and create, which is why its so important to support their endeavors. Sometimes these products can be expensive, but most of the time the money goes straight to the creator.

I currently have an online course for any student interested in going to pharmacy school, if you want to support my little business. The course is called From Student to PharmD, and I walk you through the entire process of how to get accepted into your dream program.

Even though you definitely do not have to do any of the following if you don’t want to. That’s the whole thing about offering your support. It’s something for you to offer if you feel compelled to do so. Hopefully you enjoy the content of your favorite influencer or content creator that you want to show them your support in any way that you can.

How do you support your favorite content creators?

The post How to Support Your Favorite Influencers and Content Creators appeared first on Uniquely Mickie.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a little more free time to think about where I want my blog to go in the future and to brainstorm unique content ideas that will be useful to you. I created my blog over three years (with a one year hiatus/gap in between), and I’ve never done a reader survey before until now!  So I would say I’m well overdue for one.  This reader survey is the chance for you guys to tell me what you want to see and how you think I’m doing so far! In 2020, I want to make sure I’m creating more content that you actually want to see and on topics that you enjoy.

If you have a couple of minutes to spare, I’d love for you to complete the reader survey below. Your responses will help me make UniquelyMickie.com even bigger and better for you! I want to thank you in advance for your participation and honesty. Please remember that I’m a real person and give feedback that is helpful to me, not tear me down. 😄

Create your own user feedback survey

The post Reader Survey 2019 appeared first on Uniquely Mickie.

The biggest thing to consider when it comes to making money from blogging is to realize that most bloggers make money from different sources. You don’t want to put all of your eggs into one basket, in case that revenue algorithm changes over time like Instagram.

Quick Answers

What helps a blogger make money?

The quick answer is that most bloggers that you see on the internet aren’t making any kind of money, but on the flip side, there are bloggers who are making 6-figures from blogging. Here’s the short and sweet version of the big difference between the two:

• Successful bloggers generate revenue from multiple monetization strategies that we will discuss in this blog post.
• Successful bloggers don’t see their blog as the source of income. They build up their brand and their email list first. Then they use the foundation of their blog as a springboard to market other forms of revenue.
• Successful bloggers are insanely creative and don’t copy the work of others. In the world full of online personalities, it pays to be different and unique from the rest.
• Successful bloggers understand that building a brand and their website will take time and patient. Blogging isn’t a quick rich-scheme, but a long-term business adventure that you have to be ready to invest in.

How to get started:

Whether you’re a new blogger or a veteran in blogging, you can start making money from your blog as you have these key ingredients set in place first.

1. Have a blog
2. Create a strong foundation in your niche and with others in the community
3. Create useful content for your readers
4. A great template for your website that is easy to read and to look at
5. An email list
6. A game plan of the income strategies you are going to start to do

Now, let’s cover the basics of a money-making blog in details.

Start a Blog

The first step is to actually have a blog in place (obviously!). If you are haven’t started blog yet, don’t fret! I created this step by step guide to help you get your blog up and running in less than 30 minutes. It’s honestly that easy and it’s been the best decision of my life (outside of pharmacy school). 

Create a strong foundation in your niche and with others in the community

The best part about blogging is the ability to connect with like-minded people, make new friends, and the ability to learn something new every day online.

Some ideas are to participate in Facebook group boards, comment on other people’s blogs, interact with the people who leave nice comments on your blog and be interactive on social media where your target audience hangs out. You’ll eventually gain a following because people will talk about how amazing you are! Plus people love to follow people that they trust and believe in, so shoot for that.

Create useful content for your audience

Nobody wants to read the same material regurgitate over and over again. So be creative with the content that you write, but also talk about topics that people want to know about. People love reading how-to’s, personal experiences, and anything else that will solve their problems.

In order to make money blogging, you have to gain a readership (aka have blog visitors), but nobody will read your blog if you don’t have quality content available.

A great template for your blog that is easy to read and look at

The worst thing that you can do for your brand and website is to make your blog really busy to look at, hard to load, and just generally unappealing to look at. People get bored easily so if your website takes forever to load more than likely people are going to exit out and try to find something else to solve their problems.  You also don’t want your blog to be cluttered with ads or large pictures where it makes it hard to read your amazing content. White space on a blog is great space!

An email list

If you’re new to the blogging world or a veteran in blogging, then you need to know that starting an email list and building those numbers are really important. An email list is important for bloggers because it’s the only aspect of communication between you and your readers that is actually yours. If Instagram or Facebook suddenly dies out, you won’t lose your followers! You would have them on your email list so it won’t even affect your income or numbers if some social media platforms die away.

Here are some posts that I’ve done so far to help you start your own email list and how to get started on building your list with the right audience: 

• How to Grow Your Email with Interact
• 5 Tips to Grow Your Email List on Autopilot
• Why I Invested in Convertkit vs Mailchimp When I was Earning $0 From My Blog

A game plan of the income strategies you are going to use

Many successful bloggers utilize multiple ways of generating income, from ads to affiliate marketing to producing their own products. The reason for this is that each month your revenue is going to change because of the seasons, the months, and what’s going on in the world. So you have to be prepared for those changes, which you means you need to create a game plan of how you want to generate income from your blog.

Streams of income used by bloggers

These are the different ways that bloggers make an income from blogging, broken down into categories that we will further discuss. 

• Advertising 
• Selling Your Own Products or Services
• Sponsored Content
• Affiliate Marketing 
• Events (Host or Attend)
• Membership or Premium Content 

Advertising 

One of the ways that I’ve learned how to make money is by placing advertisements on your website. You can either go through a program, such as Media.net and Google Adsense, or you can market your space by doing private advertisements, where companies will pay you a monthly fee to advertise on your site.

I have dappled with both programs, and I truly love Google Adsense. It takes a little work to get accepted into Google Adsense, but I totally think it is worth it. Last month, I was able to make $145 just off of the ads that Google was displaying to my readers. While I’m not sure what they are, but they seem to enjoy it enough to click through the ads. With Google Adsense, you have the option to determine what ads are or are not shown to your audience.

You can also offer private advertisements where companies will pay you a set fee to display their ads to your audience. Either way is a great option to make money from blogging.

Sell your own product or services

Another great way to make money through your blog is by selling your own products or services. Some of the ideas of this are by selling an online course, e-book, or services that you offer on your blog.

When you’re first starting off with this idea, go ahead and start small to test the waters and to see what works best for your audience. I wrote an E-book this summer, but I needed up taking down the book to create an online course so I could tell my students more information and be more interactive with them.

You do typically need to promote your ebook or course online often to generate a lot of income from it, but they are a great way to make money.

If you are interested in creating an Ebook, SendOwl is a great program to use that deals with the payments and actually delivering the product. On the other hand, if you are interested in creating a course, I highly recommend Teachable. It’s super easy to use with customizable landing pages, sales pages, and even a thank you page. You can also utilize the affiliate program aspect to get more people to help you promote your course. I’ve created a course using the Teachable platform for my Student to PharmD course, and I’ve been loving the platform every since.

Sponsored content

Have you seen those blog posts where it says, “sponsored by so-so brand, but all opinions are my own”? Well, typically that means the blogger got paid to write that blog post and usually receive the products for free to use in the blog post. Sponsored content is a great way to make income, especially with brands or companies that you actually enjoy.

When you are looking for sponsored content, there are two routes that you can take: pitching to brands yourself or joining a program that does the work for you.

We’ll talk about the programs first. Some of the programs require you to have a certain amount of page views per month or a certain amount of social media followers, but there are programs who welcome in newbie bloggers if you are in that category. The cool part about joining a program is the ability to upload your stats to the website, and the companies pitch to you if they think your audience is a good match for them. Some programs allow you to customize how much you get paid for each kind of promotion, such as Instagram post, a blog post, or a shout out on twitter.

Here are some great programs to join, if sponsored content is something you are interested in:

• Izea
• TapInfluence
• Acorn
• Linquia

The other way to get sponsored content is to actually pitch to companies yourself through emails or through social media. I’ve done this quite a few times where the companies agree to my terms and sends me really cool products to tell my audience about. Remember when you are pitching to companies, you need to make sure that you truly enjoy the brands, the brand aligns with your brand, and you only give honest reviews.

Don’t agree to blog about a product that you think sucks. For one, your readers will be able to pick up on the difference of your writing, and two, you will lose the trust of your readers, which is a big no-no. When pitching to a company yourself, make sure you have a media kit ready that outlines your general audience, the information about your blog, and your average states (pageviews, unique audience, etc)

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is when you are promoting someone else’s product, such as a hair mask or online course. You then make a commission every time someone uses your link to buy the product. Many bloggers have made over 6 figures through affiliate marketing, such as M Griffin.

I won’t go into many details here because I haven’t fully dappled in affiliate marketing yet.

Just make sure before you start using affiliate links to make sure you have a full disclosure on your website, a privacy policy, and that you include somewhere in your blog posts that you have affiliate links in the post itself.

Events (Hosting or Speaking)

Another great way to earn an income through your blog is actually hosting an event or speak at an event. Bloggers are influencers in the online/social media world so a lot of people look up to you or want to learn from you.

So, if you like public speaking or meeting your readers in person, then events are a great way to earn some extra cash and have a lot of fun in different cities. But don’t estimate the work that comes with hosting or planning an event on your own. If you like event planning or extremely motivated, then hosting a conference or an event might be great for you and your audience.

Membership or Premium Content

This used to be a really popular way bloggers would make money, but I think this aspect of monetization has kind of dyed away a little. But regardless, it’s a great way to make money because a lot of people want the inside scope and get more knowledge that they can’t get anywhere else.

You can create a membership login in on your WordPress blog where people have to login in, pay for the premium content to get access to it and get to access the premium content. When you are starting to create your membership, make sure that you are splitting up the material of what you want to give away for free and what you want people to pay for.

Too Many Ideas?

No worries! Pick one or two options to test the water first, then add on once you feel comfortable with the other options. You can also see what other people in your niche are doing. Are they running ads on your website? Are they doing sponsored blog posts or hosting events in their area? See what works for you, your audience, and budget. Some of the choices take a lot more work than others, but at the same time, some of the options can generate more income than others. You can start from anywhere at any time. You don’t have to be a big time blogger with 100,000 monthly pageviews to generate an income from blogging is the key to this blog post.

The post The True Story About How to Make Money Blogging appeared first on Uniquely Mickie.

Canva

I make the majority of my Instagram, Pinterest, and blog images with an online tool called Canva. It’s similar to Adobe Cloud, except its free and easier to use.  Canva is hands down my favorite graphic design tool for blogging and is highly recommended in the blogging world for good reasons. While I mainly use Canva for my social media accounts, there are plenty of sizes for any other project that you need to create something for, such as a Facebook banner, business cards, content upgrades, ebook covers, or flyers. You can totally go ahead and spend the money to pay for other programs, such as Adobe Cloud or Photoshop, but it’s an unnecessary cost since Canva does the same thing for free!

Google Analytics

Honestly, Google Analytics is like the heart of your blog besides your beautiful face and ground-breaking content. Blogging isn’t always about the numbers, but it’s important to know your stats, what social media sites bring you the most pageviews, and what your audience loves reading on your blog. I love using Google Analytics to see exactly what works for my blog and audience as well as what areas could I improve on.

Tailwind

Tailwind is the tool that literally changed the Pinterest game for me. I no longer have to spend hours on Pinterest pinning my pins to group boards or pinning other people’s content to my boards. This handy tool does it all for me with only 30 minutes a week to keep it running smoothly! If you are spending a bunch of time on Pinterest and not seeing a lot of results from your efforts, then check out Boardbooster. You can set up secret boards where you can pin content to and over the week, Boardbooster will slowly pin your posts or images to the specific boards that way you always look like your active even if you’re not. If you want to test Tailwind, you can through my referral link and get your first month free!

Convertkit

Convertkit is the mailing service provider that I use to send out my content upgrades, newsletter emails, and hidden freebies that only my subscribers get access to. The best part about Convertkit is that it’s easy to use, doesn’t have a huge learning curve, and their customer service is bomb DOT com. With Convertkit, you can also create a Welcome sequence, an email course series, and host your own landing page right on your page. While most new bloggers won’t want to spend money on a service like Convertkit at first, I highly recommend that you do.

Google Adsense

Getting started with Google Adsense can be a big pain-in-the-butt at first, but once you get started, I’ve seen such an improvement in the amount of money that I make through ads! I only have one ad through them on my sidebar as well as an ad that pops up at the bottom of the page for mobile users. You can easily customize how the ad looks or what kind of ads work best for your audience. Most of the ads seen on my blog are related to fashion, blogging, and anything college-related. Ads are an easy way to make money blogging that is easily passive once you get it started on your blog.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is my favorite app and website to schedule my Twitter tweets and Facebook posts. It’s super simple to either auto-schedule your posts or schedule them yourself for days or weeks in advance. I use to mass scheduling session on the weekend to schedule tweets and Facebook posts so that it always seems like I am being active on those platforms, even when I’m not. Being a working college student, I have to use every tool to help me save time, and Hootsuite is such a time-saver for me!

Crowdfire

I also love using Crowdfire to schedule posts and help me on my social media A-game. Crowdfire pulls together posts or tweets from people who are either your competition or are using the keywords you’ve designated. This way you can follow your competition’s followers as well as see what keywords are being most used in your target audience. I also love the fact that it keeps up with people who unfollow you or who are ghost on your account. That way you can keep up with your follower-following ratio with only a few minutes of your day.

Grammarly

This widget or plugin is amazing for correcting spelling errors on the go as well as catching some English errors that need to be fixed or else your email or blog post doesn’t look very professional. I make sure to allow all of my blog posts go through Grammarly’s system to verify that everything is spelled correctly and looks amazing before publishing. It’s really easy to make mistakes when you’re writing quickly, or late at night, that sometimes little mistakes get looked over. The best part about Grammarly is that it’s completely free! Unbelievable, right?  So if you need a professional system to double-check your writing for emails or essays, then you definitely need to download Grammarly. 

Let me be honest, blogging is a lot of work and takes a lot of time to really connect with your readers on all of your social media accounts. With the help of these tools that I’ve mentioned, I’ve been able to do the impossible, aka always look active on social media. But at the same time, these tools have helped me earn a passive income and be able to enjoy life while still growing my blog.

As always if you enjoyed reading this post, please go ahead and save it to Pinterest for later reference or share it on your accounts. It only takes a few seconds of your time, and it helps me grow my blog!

You may also like: 5 Tips to Grow Your Email List on Autopilot, The True Story about How to Make Money Blogging, and How to Start a Profitable Blog

The post 8 Blogging Tools That I Can’t Live Without appeared first on Uniquely Mickie.

If you’re not a fellow blogger, then these might come off as quite strange. But let me explain why I want to start doing these reports for you all.      

1. Growth Tracking- These reports will allow me to see my growth in traffic and income over time. Most other bloggers only start posting these reports once they start making money, but everyone has to start from the bottom before they reach the top.  I hope that these reports help inspire other bloggers that you can eventually make money through blogging
2. Transparency- There are a ton of ways to make money through blogging, some that are honest and some that aren’t. I want to be totally honest in how I make money, where I get the money from, and that this blog is legit. No funny business here, I promise!

What I Did This Month

This month, I was able to publish 8 blog posts for the month of September, which is pretty crazy to think because I am in full swing in college. This month I mainly focused on writing a few guest blog posts, which you can read here and here. I had a really great time writing those blog posts and being able to network with other millennial bloggers.

My social media game has definitely fallen down since school started back, but I hope to find a groove that works for me when it comes to posting and staying active on my channels.

September Social Media Report

Thankfully most of my social media accounts have grown without too much work on my behalf. On the downside, my Instagram followers have fallen due to me not being able to post and engage as I used too. Let me know what you want to see on Instagram as well on some of my other platforms!

Instagram: 1075 –> 1047     Goal for Next Month: 1100

Facebook: 254 –> 270         Goal for Next Month: 300

Pinterest: 361 –> 425          Goal for Next Month: 500

Twitter: 265 –> 283             Goal for Next Month: 300

September Traffic & Income Report

September was a month of slow growth, but growth is growth no matter what. I am still surprised when I get over 100 or 200 pageviews in a one day, but hopefully next month I will be able to reach 4,000 to 5,000 pageviews. I also made the switch from Media.net to Google Adsense and my income has skyrocketed tremendously! With Media.net, I was barely make a few pennies each day. But with Google Adsense, I could make $15 to $30 in one day, which is crazy to me being that I am new blogger!

I am also working on expanding my E-Book about how to get into pharmacy school into a live, engaging course through Teachable. It’s going to include a lot of freebies include the E-Book has a take away, an exclusive Facebook group, a 1 on 1 resume review with me, and a lot more goodies! Be on the lookout for the launch of that new course!

Traffic

Here is the screenshot of my traffic for this month straight from Google Analytics:

Income

• Google Adsense: $145
• Ebates: $5
• Free Products: $60 in value

Total: $150 + $60 in free products

September’s Most Popular Posts

• The Hidden Secrets of Selling on Poshmark 
• How to Ace Your Pharmacy or Medical Interview
• 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Graduation
• The Ultimate List of Discounts for College Students
• How I Gain Pharmacy Experience as a Freshmen in College 

Want to Start Your Own Blog?

If you answered “yes”, then you totally should! It’s really not that hard to do, and it’s totally changed my life for the better. Let blogging do the same for you. I created an entire guide on my blog where I teach you step-by-step on how you can start your own blog, in less than 30 minutes! I promise it’s really simply, you just have to take that leap of faith to go for it! Click here to learn how to!

The post September 2017 Traffic & Income Report appeared first on Uniquely Mickie.

If you are a current college blogger or a future blogger looking for ideas or inspiration for blog posts, then you’ve come to the right place. I’ve created this list to hopefully strike your imagination and get your fingers typing on your next blog post! Haven’t started your blog yet? No worries! I’ve written a step by step guide on how I started this blog and made it profitable from day one to help you in your blogging journey. 

Here are 50 ideas for blog posts for college bloggers:

• How to study for a hard exam
• Your makeup essentials for college
• Your backpack essentials for college
• How you make money while in college
• How you use your planner to stay organized
• Ways to get involved on campus
• Why you picked the college you did
• Tips you would give your freshmen, sophomore, junior, or senior self
• Graduation lookbook
• Graduation gifts for men & woman
• Christmas wish list for men & woman in college
• Subscription boxes for college students
• How to not get the freshmen 15
• Game day outfit inspirations
• How to study effectively
• Discounts for college students
• Perks of being a student
• Most embarrassing moment on campus
• How to meet friends in college
• Mental health in college
• Reverse bucket list (all of
• Bucket list
• A letter to your younger self, family member, loved one, etc
• How to survive morning class or evening classes
• Tips to be successful in college
• Dorm room studies
• Essentials for a dorm room
• Things you didn’t need in your college dorm room
• How to deal with differences in a dorm room
• How to maintain your goals
• Self-care in college
• What to look out for during a college tour
• Should you bring a car to college?
• The pros/cons of living on or living off campus
• How to save money grocery shopping
• Should you get a meal plan or not?
• A round up post for a freshmen survival guide
• A letter to your future self
• Fall essentials
• How to survive finals week
• What to do during spring break
• Apps that every college student needs to have
• How to build credit as a student
• How to manage your money as a broke college student
• How to lessen your stress  
• Everything you need to know about sorority recruitment
• What’s on your birthday wish list
• Types of shoes you need in college
• How to email your professor appropriately
• College football tailgating essentials
• Random facts about yourself
• How to maintain a long-distance relationship
• How to maintain a relationship while in college
• A list of birthday freebies that you can get every year   
• What you need to know before you sign your first apartment lease

I hope that this blog post helps you get through a writer’s blog or help you gain motivation on the type of topics you can discuss as a college blogger. But don’t forget that even if you are a college blogger that doesn’t mean you only have to talk about college. You can always branch out to cover other topics, like I do, or change the topic as you grow as a person. You won’t be able to blog about college forever so keep that in mind too. If you want to go ahead and take the plunge by starting your own blog, read my step by step guide on how to create a profitable blog from day one to get started!

Please give this post a share so that other people get the chance to read it! It really helps me a lot and it only takes a few minutes of your time to do so.

The post 50 Blog Post Ideas for College Bloggers appeared first on Uniquely Mickie.

If you’re not a fellow blogger, then these might come off as quite strange. But let me explain why I want to start doing these reports for you all.      

1. Growth Tracking- These reports will allow me to see my growth in traffic and income over time. Most other bloggers only start posting these reports once they start making money, but everyone has to start from the bottom before they reach the top.  I hope that these reports help inspire other bloggers that you can eventually make money through blogging
2. Transparency- There are a ton of ways to make money through blogging, some that are honest and some that aren’t. I want to be totally honest in how I make money, where I get the money from, and that this blog is legit. No funny business here, I promise!

What I Did This Month

With concern to blog posts, I was able to write 8 posts for the month of August. This month I not only focused on making great content and connecting with other bloggers, but I also focused on setting up sponsored posts and creating my first media kit to send to companies. While I can’t go into too much details on the campaigns yet, you will be seeing them very soon here on the blog including a few giveaways!

This month, I also helped my apartment with move-in and went back to school at the end of August. While I won’t be able to post as often as I have been, you will be seeing a new post every Monday and surprise posts when I am able to have some free time to write for you all. But bear with me until I get into the groove of things with school being back in session.

I have also gotten better at my social media platforms, with the help of automating posts and social media reminders. If you want to follow me, then you totally can by clicking on the links underneath my profile picture in the sidebar.

August Social Media Report

This month, my social media standing and engagement has definitely grown, without me doing much work. Thankfully for the automation apps that help bloggers, like me, who are super busy stay on tasks when it comes to social media goals. I have also connect with some great fellow bloggers who have really shown me the ropes and have helped me learn more in-depth details of blogging.

Here is my social media growth for the month of August:

Instagram: 946 –> 1075        Goal for Next Month: 1,300

Facebook: 198 –>  254          Goal for Next Month: 300

Pinterest: 274 –> 361            Goal for Next Month: 400

Twitter: 119 –> 265              Goal for Next Month: 300

August Traffic & Income Report

This is my third month of officially blogging here on Uniquely Mickie so the fact that I am making a small income and getting quite a few Pageviews is incredible! Here are my stats for the month of August. My Pageviews definitely had a slight drop this month compared to last month, but we will definitely work on that during this next month. The goal for next month is to get 5,000 or 6,000 Pageviews!

Traffic:

Here is the screenshot of August’s traffic report, straight from Google Analytics.

Income:

• Sales from my E-book: $20
• Qapital (From this post here): $5
• Value Amount of Free Products for Sponsored Posts: $400
• Google Adsense: $11.35

Total: $36.35 plus $400 worth of free items for future blog posts

August’s Most Popular Posts

• The Ultimate List of Discounts for College Students                                                             Pageviews: 534
• The Hidden Secrets of Selling on Poshmark                                                                          Pageviews: 411
• How I Saved $2,000 in My 20s: College Edition                                                                   Pageviews: 379
• How to Have a Successful First Move-in Day: A Survivor’s Guide                                      Pageviews: 342
• 15 Savvy Ways to Save Money in College Without Cutting the College Experience           Pageviews: 171

What to Start Your Own Blog?

If you answered “yes”, then you totally should! It’s really not that hard to do, and it’s totally changed my life for the better. Let blogging do the same for you. I created an entire guide on my blog where I teach you step-by-step on how you can start your own blog, in less than 30 minutes! I promise it’s really simply, you just have to take that leap of faith to go for it! Click here to learn how.

You may also enjoy: July 2017 Income & Traffic Report and May/June 2017 Income & Traffic Report

The post August 2017 Traffic & Income Report appeared first on Uniquely Mickie.

When you first log in to WordPress, it can seem quite confusing, but I promise you it’s not. It’s actually quite simple. The bulk of WordPress is the sidebar, this is where everything you need is located.

Posts: This is where the magic happens, aka where you write all of your posts or edit old ones. This is basically where I spend the most time on besides the comments page.

Media: When you upload a photo into a post or add a feature photo, this is the page where all of that information gets stored to. But you have access to this page in the post editor, so I never have to use this tab.

Pages: This is basically the header of your website so you can change the layout of your navigation bar or add pages to it. Typically, you’ll want to have an “about me” page, a “contact me” page, and your topics that you’ll write about on your blog

Comments: This is the page where you’ll see all of the comments made on your page! I use the comment widget that came with my theme that I installed, but there are plugins that you can download to change the look of the comment sections.

Appearance: At the start of your blog, this is the page that you’ll spend the most time on deciding how you want your blog to look like. You can add customized Instagram feeds, headers, color changes, and anything else you imagined your blog to have.

Plugins: Plugins are like really cool add-ons to your blog that can do a numerous of things, including speeding up your website’s loading time or adding in pop-ups.

Users: It’s your blog so you’ll be the only user.

Tools: This page has import and export options, but I’ve never had to use this and you probably won’t either.

Theme

If you don’t know what a theme is, it’s basically the outfit for your blog. It’s the backbone of what your blog will look like. There are plenty of paid options, but if you’re just starting out, then I would just find a free one to use instead. You want to be positive that blogging is for you before you start investing in brand designs and expensive themes. Once you find a theme you like, just follow the instructions to download and active the theme. Once you’ve down that, your theme should be up!

Add Pages and Posts

Now this is where the fun part begins because this is where you get to add your content! The first page that you need to work on is your “about me” page. I know it’s the most awkward thing having to talk about yourself, but it’s really important. I love reading other people’s about me pages. It allows your viewers to really connect with you on a personal level.
After you finished writing that page, you can start to add any other pages that you want to create, such as a contact me page, tabs for each topic you want to blog about, and a reference page. A reference page is where you can list out all of your favorite products or anything else that you enjoy so your viewers can easily access that information.

The next step is to create your first post or posts. What you want to write about is totally up to you as well as the number of posts that you want to create before you launch your blog. You can start with an introduction or start right off with your content.
The dashboard in the post editor is where you can customize how you want your blog post to look like. You can add pictures thru the “Add Media” button, which is what I was talking about earlier. If you are familiar with Word, the dashboard looks very similarly to the Word dashboard. The slight modifications are you can add a “read more”, add special characters, quote your text, and add a line through the body of your post.

It’s pretty straight forward once you get the hang of the dashboard.

Plugins and Widgets

The best part about WordPress is the added bonus that you get called plugins and widgets that allow you to customize your website to the max! There is literally a plugin or widget for everything you could possibly want for your blog.
But be careful that you don’t add too many or they’ll bogged down your website and make the loading time slower.

Here are the ones that I recommend:

• YoastSEO: This is going to give you the tools and guidance on search engine optimization. SEO just means that your website is more likely to be indexed on the big search engines, such as Google and Yahoo.
• WP-PageNavi: This plugin will create a page index at the bottom of your blog so your viewers can skip through the numerous blog posts.
• WooCommerce: If you want to sell items on your website, then this is the plugin for you. I just created my first e-book and this is the plugin that helped me get my product on my blog.
• W3 Total Cache: This will help your website load faster and smoother, especially if you have a lot of pictures on your blog.
• Updraft Plus- Backup & Restore: This is going to back up and restore your website if it ever goes down. You don’t want to lose all of your hard work so this a necessity, if you ask me.
• Instagram Feed: Add your Instagram feed to your sidebar with this widget!
• Better Click to Tweet: This is going to allow you to add tweet boxes in your post and allow other people to tweet a quote or message from your post.
• Subscribe: I personally use Convertkit for my subscriber list, but you can totally use a Mailchimp or another service if you don’t want to pay for it at the moment. Either way, it’s really important as a blogger to create an email subscription list.

Well, there you have it! If you actually learned how to use WordPress to its full capacity, you’re ready to go and start making your blog a business. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to sending me an email! I would love to help in any way that I can.

You may also like: 6 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Blogging, 5 Tips to Grow Your Email List On Autopilot, and The True Story About How to Make Money Blogging

The post Blogging Basics 101: All About WordPress appeared first on Uniquely Mickie.

 If you’re not a fellow blogger, then these might come off as quite strange. But let me explain why I want to start doing these reports for you all.      

1. Growth Tracking- These reports will allow me to see my growth in traffic and income over time. Most other bloggers only start posting these reports once they start making money, but everyone has to start from the bottom before they reach the top.  I hope that these reports help inspire other bloggers that you can eventually make money through blogging
2. Transparency- There are a ton of ways to make money through blogging, some that are honest and some that aren’t. I want to be totally honest in how I make money, where I get the money from, and that this blog is legit. No funny business here, I promise!

What I Did This Month

Concerning blog posts, I wrote 8 in total for the month of July. While I focused on making great content, I have also been working on my social media platforms, creating my first e-book, and setting up sponsored content.

I’ve mainly been focusing on Instagram (follow me here!) and Twitter (follow me here!) because it’s fun to come up with quick messages and take stunning photos. At the end of the month, I learned the value of promotion and having people or pages shout you out on their platforms. It really helps to gain followers and to get more eyes on your content. Alas, hashtags and retweets are what really work for Twitter, but I am still learning about those approaches to that platform.

This month, I also created my first e-book titled the 10 Step Guide to Getting Into Pharmacy School, which like the title suggests is a how-to guide for any college students or pharmacy technicians looking to get into pharmacy school. I teach you step-by-step of how I did it, even if you are a minority. It’s roughly 30 pages, and I have to say that I am extremely proud of my book. If you would like to support the e-book or take a look at it, then click here.

Next month, I hope to still focus on Instagram and my original content, but start to introduce sponsored posts and those kinds of opportunities.

[bctt tweet=”July 2017 Income & Traffic Report is now Live! See how I make an income from blogging…” username=”uniquelymickie”]

July Social Media Report

This month, I tried to focus most of my attention to Instagram and Pinterest to increase my engagement and the visibility of my posts. It really has helped me by being more active and engaging with fellow bloggers and my viewers. I’m still working on the whole Instagram theme idea, but when I get the hang of it, then I’ll make a full in-depth blog post on how to create an Instagram theme.

Instagram: 727 –> 946         Goal for Last Month: 750  Pass!                      Goal for Next Month: 1,500

Facebook: 191 –> 198         Goal for Last Month: 300  Fail!                       Goal for Next Month: 200

Pinterest: 226 –> 274          Goal for Last Month: 300  Fail!                        Goal for Next Month: 300

Twitter: 95 –> 119              Goal for Last Month: 150  Fail!                        Goal for Next Month: 125

July Income & Traffic Report

This is my second full month that my blog has been live, and I can definitely say I have almost tripled the amount of pageviews for the month of July. I even doubled the amount of  unique visitors that I had as well from 956 to 3989. Another great part of July is that I did end up having a small income! Whoop, whoop for small changes because everyone has to start somewhere.

Income:

• My First E-Book: $10.59  (purchase it here)
• Media.net: $2.44 (but I can’t get paid until I reach the $100 minimum payout requirement)
• Style Collective: $0.55 (but I can’t get paid until I reach the $100 minimum payout requirement)

Total Income: $13.58

Traffic

Here is the traffic screenshot for the month of July!

July’s Most Popular Posts:

• The Ultimate List of Discounts for College Students       Pageviews: 1,008
• How to Have A Successful First Move-in Day: A Survivor’s Guide     Pageviews: 583
• The Hidden Secrets of Selling on Poshmark     Pageviews: 494
• 15 Savvy Ways to Save Money in College Without Cutting the College Experience   Pageviews: 470

Based off of my pageviews and popular posts for the month of July, I definitely saw an increase in activity on topics related to money and side hustles. Since I love saving money and learning how to make an income from various sources, I definitely will continue incorporating these topics into my blog.

Want to Start Your Own Blog?

If you answered “yes”, then you totally should! It’s really not that hard to do, and it’s totally changed my life for the better. Let blogging do the same for you. I created an entire guide on my blog where I teach you step-by-step on how you can start your own blog, in less than 30 minutes! I promise it’s really simply, you just have to take that leap of faith to go for it! Click here to learn how.

The post July 2017 Income & Traffic Report appeared first on Uniquely Mickie.

So without further do, here’s my step by step guide on how to start a profitable blog!

Isn’t Starting a Blog Hard?

Nope, not at all! I totally thought it would be, but once I got started, it was as easy as 1, 2, 3. While it’s useful to know some coding beforehand, it’s definitely not required. The only piece of knowledge that you need to start creating your own blog is to know how to work a computer. In this post, I am going to show you step by step on how to set up your own blog and hopefully sway you to make a self-hosted website as opposed to .blogger.com or .wordpress.com

Why Start a Blog?

• It’s an outlet: I use my blog as a creative space to write my thoughts and to help others through my writing.
• Networking: When you have a blog, you get the opportunity to meet a bunch of amazing bloggers and readers that welcome you into the community with open arms. It’s really been great having a built-in support system on the internet.
• Income: I started my blog in the hopes that one day I could make a full time income from working from home and helping to inspire others. Isn’t that like the American dream nowadays? Work less, but earn more!

Self –Hosting is always the way to go

If you look up at the url section, you’ll see where it says www.uniquelymickie.com, there’s no .blogger or .wordpress attached to the url. That means that I own my website and have entire rights to anything I post on my blog. The first time I started a blog, I used a free hosting service and, ultimately, the original blog idea failed and fizzled out. The second time around I spent a lot of time researching my options and realized that if I wanted to make my blog a business, then I needed to take it seriously.

Eventually, I bite the bullet and invested in my own domain (aka paid for self-hosting). Why do you ask? Let me explain my reasons for doing so:

• I wanted to be my own boss and when you own website, you get to be the boss. Free websites such as blogger and wordpress.com have total rights over what you post and can even take down your whole website in a blink of an eye, just because.
• I wanted to be taken seriously as a writer and as a blogger. You can be a serious blogger not having your domain, but it’s a lot easier to build trust and loyalty with your own website.
• I wanted this hobby of mine to come a real life source of income. With any hobby, you have to make a small investment to get started and to start making money.

What You’ll Need to Begin:

• 30 minutes or so for step up
• A computer
• A debit or credit card
• Time dedicated to working on your blog weekly

Step one: Hosting

At this point of the process, this is where you have the option to use a free website, such as blogger or blogspot.com. But as I mentioned before if you wanted to be a serious blogger and start making money, then you’ll need to have a self-hosted domain. At the same time do whatever your budget allows at the moment and you can upgrade later on.

When I was researching on how to start a blog, there were a million hosting options to choose from, but I wanted something that would be simple to use and effective in power. It didn’t want to pay for all of the fancy whistles or any other tools that I wouldn’t use or know how to use to begin with.

I eventually ended up choosing BlueHost for numerous of reasons, such as affordable price, 24/7 help service, and unlimited bandwidth. Another great aspect of BlueHost is that I’ve never experience downtime or a lag in downloading my website, which is a great plus for keeping viewers on your page.

Now to the fun part of bringing your website to life! Just go to the BlueHost website and click on the big green button that says “get started now”.

Click it and you’ll be presented with three choices for your plan. I recommend going with the cheapest one, but it’s very unlikely that you’ll need to upgrade to anything bigger. You’ll definitely have the option to upgrade later on if you need to. I currently have the cheapest plan for Uniquely Mickie at the moment.

The next step is to register your domain. You’ll want to take your time when deciding your domain name because it’s a complete pain to change it later on and it needs to be easy for your viewers to remember it. Keep these tips in mind:

• Don’t use numbers: Do I even need to explain? Your domain isn’t a username or password so no numbers unless that’s the name of you clothing brand or something, then leave out the numbers.
• Keep your options open: If you are blogging about multiple topics, then you don’t want to limit yourself by labeling your blog as only one topic, such as allthingslifestyle.com, when you might talk about fashion. If a person sees that your url states a single topic, then they won’t come to your site looking for beauty or fashion posts. Keep your domain broad and simple.
• Choose something that you won’t outgrow: As we grow older and we mature, our thought process also changes. You don’t want that to happen to the name of your domain. You want something that will be timeless and something that you won’t outgrow as you get older and your blog matures.
• Choose something that will draw in your target audience: If you are thinking of targeting a certain age group or any other demographics, then you’ll want to target the name of your domain to something that they will enjoy.

Now type in the new name of your domain and choose the .com option. I highly recommend sticking with .com just because it’s the norm for a blog and easier for your viewers to remember.

Next, fill out your account information, choose an account plan (I recommend doing at least 1 year), and then you can pick your add-on bonus. I skipped the other add-on bonus except for the Domain Privacy Protection, which keeps your personal information sealed from anyone looking up your domain.

Then fill in your payment information, click submit, and you just created the backbone for your blog!

Step Two: Linking up WordPress to your BlueHost account

Bluehost made this step super easy with only a single click of your cursor. So after paying the hosting bill, you’ll login in under the “hosting login” option. You can choose either to login in through your gmail account or use the account information from the welcome email that you received from BlueHost.

After logging into your cpanel, click the “Install WordPress” icon on your dashboard under the website builder header. You’ll then click the green button that says “continue installation”.

Once the install is complete, the website will ask you to type in your WordPress account information or to create one, if you don’t already have one.

Ta-Da, You Did It!

You’re officially a blogger now! But that was just the beginning, it’s now up to you to post regularly, engage with your viewers, network with other fellow bloggers, and make great content that everyone will be dying to read. The last tip of advice that I can give you for your new journey is to just have fun with blogging!

Please don’t hesitate if you have any questions or just want to chat with me, then just send me an email. I would be more than willing to help you regarding topics such as networking, setting up your blog, or any other questions that you might have.

You may also enjoy: Blogging Basics 101: All About WordPress, 6 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Blogging, and The True Story About How to Make Money Blogging

The post How to Start A Profitable Blog appeared first on Uniquely Mickie.