It’s been a long time since my last Ask Me Anything here on Making Sense of Cents.
Ask Me Anything is literally that – you can ask me anything. If you’re struggling to figure out what to ask, here are a few of the topics you may want to know more about:
- Personal finance
- Blogging
- My life
- Travel
- RVing
- Sailing
- Being location independent
- Business
- Making extra money
- Questions about my dogs
And so on, and so on.
Seriously, ask me anything in the comments below, and I will take the time to answer every single one. Of course, please nothing inappropriate or creepy. I’ll let you be the judge of what is creepy, I guess, haha!
All right, go for it, ask away!
P.S. If you’re looking to see all of the comments and questions, make sure to hit “Older Comments” or “Newer Comments” below. The comments break apart in pages once there are over 50 comments.
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Hi Michelle! I hope you are staying safe in such crazy times. I am curious if the pandemic has taken any toll on the blogging industry? With people being home, I could see them reading, researching, and being online more. In terms of income, do you think it would be a lost cause to pursue blogging in such an unknown time? Thanks for having this post & safe travels!
Hey Ashton!
1) It’s been mixed. I’ve heard from several bloggers that views are way up for them, and then for others (mainly those who did not pivot their topic so that it is more current with the environment), those people are down.
2) I think it’s a great time to start 🙂
Hey Michelle!
Thanks for being open to questions!
What are the biggest areas you’ve seen that need more financial education and awareness? Things that you may consider “common sense”, but you’ve seen people ask about it often?
For me, it would be investing…
Growing up my parents were excellent savers, but never talked about investing…
Investing seemed hard & scary because no one ever taught me.
I wonder if more people have a similar story?
There are so many areas that I think more people would benefit from! Pretty much everything that is related to money – investing, paying for college, budgeting, credit cards, debt, and more.
I’d love to know which rv did you use to get started in the mobile life? Thank you!
Itasca Viva 🙂 It’s a part of Winnebago.
Hello,
So I am starting a new small business from my home and would love any advice or help. I am opening a Sweet Shop business. I will be selling all kinds of sweet treats.. choco covered popcorn,pretzles,rice krispies, etc. I’ll take any advice you have!
Thanks,
Tara
Hi Michelle!
Thanks for being open for questions.
I plan on taking your affiliate marketing course (just don’t have the money yet) but in the meantime I’ve been trying to get it going on my own. How did you approach affiliate marketing if you can’t find any products you like or actually use/would use. Maybe I’m being too picky but I only want to promote things or brands that I’ve actually used or tried and I’m not having much luck. I’ve signed up for most of the affiliate marketing programs but still don’t see nothing interesting to promote.
Thanks 😊
Are you sure that the products you use don’t have affiliate programs?
I’m not familiar with this area, but I would highly recommend starting a website if you don’t have one yet 🙂 Social media accounts too!
I’ve read your blog and content around making money. I have a blog and I want to increase traffic as well as opportunities to monetize. The struggle is how to do that successfully during the early stage. I would appreciate any advice.
Hi Michelle
I hope you are doing great on your side.
My question for you today is,,
I get roughly 10k blog visitors per month..I depend on my ad income which is like $100 a month because I’m still using AdSense..Is there any ad network that you would recommend me which would increase my earnings that accepts small blog like mine?
I like Adthrive and Mediavine. At 10,000 monthly, you may want to check out Media.net.
There are so many ways to grow traffic such as:
1) SEO
2) Pinterest
3) Facebook
4) Guest posting
5) Instagram
6) Starting a Youtube channel or podcast
and so much more!
I recommend reading this for more info: https://fund-rise.live/2019/04/how-to-earn-money-blogging.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Hi Michelle, If you had $50 to invest in your blog, what would you do with that money? Ideally something that would have some ROI. Thanks!
Self hosting, for sure.
After that, an email list.
1. On average, how many hours per day did you have to work to start making good money?
2. How long after (you consistently worked on your blog) did you start making over $100,000?
3. Do you ever give shout outs to new bloggers? 😉
1) My beginning isn’t like most others. I didn’t keep track of my hours exactly, as I didn’t start my blog to make money. You can read about my beginning here – https://fund-rise.live/2017/04/how-to-make-money-blogging-online.html%3C/a%3E. It took me about 6 months to make my first $100. BUT, it could have happened sooner if I knew that blogs could make money, haha.
2) You can see all of my income reports here – https://fund-rise.live/extra-income%3C/a%3E. I think it took me about 2 years to make $100,000 a year?
3) I don’t do arranged shoutouts – everything is natural and organic. If I did this then I would have to say yes to everyone and that would clutter my feed and make it hard to find good content.
Hi Michelle! I would consider myself an alternative blogger since I am a newbie focusing on entertainment, film, music, pop culture, and girl power. I base it off my podcast which focuses on women in film, entertainment and music. At times I have a hard time putting out content or have paralysis analysis at times when writing. How can I put out content consistently on this?
I highly recommend writing in advance as much as you can. For me, I like to be a few months ahead in content so that I don’t have to worry about this.
Your earlier blog posts were pretty random from food, recipes, shopping etc…How did you evolve your blog to what it is right now, where it generates sufficient income?
Honestly, it was just natural to evolve to what it is today. It happened just naturally and randomly, as I simply write about topics that I am most interested in.
Hi Michelle,
I’ve been following your blog for a few years now and your story is very inspiring.
I have just a couple of questions for you…about how many people do you have working with you (or for you) at any given time to run your blog and about how many hours per week do you work?
Thanks!
I work anywhere from 0 to 50+ hours a week. Sometimes I work 100 hours a week.
I have a virtual assistant, editor, and I hire out for some other tasks as well.
Hi Michelle – Can you explain how you were able to grow your audience? Was it all organic or did you do a bit of paid adverting to really grow?
I have a full blog post on the topic here – https://fund-rise.live/2017/04/how-to-make-money-blogging-online.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Paid advertising has never really been a huge part of growing Making Sense of Cents. Social media, email, SEO and loyal readers have been the case for the most part.
Hi Michelle, I have quite literally been waiting for this. I have a new blog and am getting some traffic, but very much in infancy. I however have my first product…and without an audience, I don’t have that immediate list to showcase my product (which I think is amazing for bloggers) to and give me that boost. What can I do? Can you give me some direction please? I also do not mind if you email me directly if you are open to it and/or have the time for a lowly blogger. Thank you.
There are many things you could do such as:
1) Grow your email list, such as with a freebie optin.
2) Advertising, such as through Facebook (here’s a good read on Facebook ads for bloggers – https://fund-rise.live/2019/01/how-one-blogger-grew-his-blog-to-over-2-million-visitors-in-a-year.html%3C/a%3E%29 or Pinterest.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, are there any new provisions for withdrawing out of your 401K. We are looking to clean up some debt.
I did some research, and you may find these helpful:
1) https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/cashing-out-401k-covid-19/
2) https://www.fool.com/retirement/2020/06/21/considering-a-401k-withdrawal-because-of-covid-19.aspx
You’ve obviously had a lot of success blogging. What has been your greatest challenge in creating and sustaining your blog, the thing that you have had to overcome. Also, if you had to name the one most important key to success, what would it be? Thanks.
1) In the beginning, it was definitely consistently publishing content. I got over that by writing blog posts in advance as much as I could, that way I never feel like I am running out of ideas.
2) Oof, this is a tough one! Probably the need to learn? There’s always new things to learn!
I have a questions about affiliate links. I have a food blog so I have been putting affilate links from Amazon in the text, sometimes I will put pictures of the product with the link. Then in the recipe card I also link to some of the same items I linked in the text.
Is this a good strategy to have several links to the same item in the text and the recipe card?
Hey Jere,
It really depends, as there are wrong and right ways to do it. You don’t want so many links that it looks cluttered.
Also, not sure if you are in it, but I have an affiliate marketing for bloggers course here too – https://makingsenseofaffiliatemarketing.com/