How Long Does It Take To Make $500 Per Month Blogging?

If you are thinking of starting a blog a common question you may have is how long does it take to earn money from blogging? Or more specifically, how long does it take to make $500 per month blogging?

This question is great and can help you stay focused as it gives you a goal to work towards. It’s quite a common question with the most common answer being “it depends”.

This is also the most accurate answer because it really does depend. I can tell you though that this blog took about 8-9 months to reach that goal part-time. I know of some bloggers that have achieved that number within 6 months, but these are much less common.

Generally speaking, you can make $500 per month blogging within 8-16 months when starting a new blog.

Now that you know how long it takes, you’ve probably got a few related questions, so we might as well answer those now.

Can You Still Make Money With a New Blog In 2023?

For everyone thinking of starting a blog, if the question isn’t how long does it take to make money blogging, then the question is, can you still make money with a new blog?

This is an easy one, the answer is yes.

Here’s a quick summary of the main reasons why you can still make money blogging in 2023:

• Blogs are a major source of trust among consumers
• There are more internet users than ever before
• Social media traffic is on the rise
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) still works
• People are spending more time online

How long does it take to make money blogging?

Now I know you’re not just interested in knowing how long it takes to make $500 per month blogging, so let’s talk about some bigger figures and how long it may take you to get there.

We’ve already discussed that $500 per month blogging can generally take between 8-16 months.

To earn $1000 per month blogging, it can take between 12-24 months.

To make $2000 per month blogging, this can take between 18-36 months.

Having the freedom to go full-time and make $5000 per month blogging can generally take 24-48 months.

If you want to make $10,000+ per month blogging, this is largely dependent on your niche, how you monetize, and many other variables, but if I have to put a time scale on this is it would be upwards of 36-60 months from the date you started your blog.

Now please note, that these are general figures and there’s no guarantee that you will earn this much blogging in this time frame or earn anything at all, it all comes down to you and no one can provide you with guarantees. I’ve outlined these amounts with these time scales because I find it good to know to set goals and to have numbers to work towards.

Why does it take so long to make money blogging?

The short answer here is that it takes time to be found online.

First, you need to put in the time to actually create content (I.e., blog posts), then it takes time to implement Search Engine Optimization, and then it takes even more time for the search engines to start recognizing the SEO efforts you’ve implemented and start ranking your content appropriately.

For a new website, it can take anywhere from 6-12 months to start ranking on Google, which can be a major source of blog traffic.

It definitely shouldn’t be your only source though, as algorithms can change. This is why I recommend starting to collect readers’ emails from the get-go, this can be as simple as placing a newsletter sign-up form on your home page, or you can take it up a notch and create a lead magnet to help incentivize people to sign up to your list.

For collecting emails, I use & recommend ConvertKit. They have a free plan of up to 1000 subscribers which is plenty for starting out.

Email broadcasts would be a second source of getting traffic to your posts, but really, it’s another “long game” method like SEO.

In order to get traffic to your blog within the first 3-6 months (and beyond), I recommend using Pinterest. This is a visual search engine that is a lot easier to rank for than Google, here you also need to implement SEO, but Pinterest SEO specifically, tends to provide results a lot quicker.

There are numerous other ways to drive traffic to your blog, but these 3 are the main ones that I find to be the most reliable and they’re also the ones that I use.

Best tips to earn your first $500 per month blogging

If you’re eager to earn your first $500+ per month with your blog, here are a few tips to help you get there faster.

One thing that you do need to know though, is that it is going to take WORK and you most likely will go through patches where you will see a rather little reward.

The question then is, do you want to spend months and years building something for someone else never to really be paid what your input deserves? Or are you willing to put in the WORK and not see the results for a few months, or maybe even years, in order to reap the fruits of your labor for years to come?

I know that I’ll always pick the latter, and I think your future self will thank you for doing so too.

Now that you know it’s not going to be easy, here are some of the best tips to earn your first $500+ per month blogging.

The best type of content to earn your first $500 per month blogging

If you’re just starting out, you may not realize it, but there are many different types of blog articles you can write and content you can create.

There are also certain types of content that make the most money and convert the best depending on how you want to monetize your blogs. Let’s focus on two of the easiest ways to monetize your blog, affiliate marketing, and ads.

Here are some of the best types of blog posts you can write for affiliate products:

• Product reviews
• Product comparisons
• Tutorials

These types of blog posts focus mainly on user intent, you see, by writing these types of articles, the reader that comes across it will most likely already be warmed up and thinking about making a purchase. Your blog post then provides them with confirmation it’s the right decision. Especially when you point out the negatives in reviews and comparisons. Buyers tend to already know about the major benefits and want to see some first-hand experience on whether the cons are something they are willing to live with.

For the second monetization method, ads, here are some of the best types of blog posts to write:

• Listicles
• How-to posts
• Write about trendy topics in your niche

If you’re running ads and want to monetize in this way, you need to drive traffic to your blog. Some of the best articles to write for traffic generation are those listed above. These are mostly information-based and look to provide readers with either information or options.

I would recommend starting out with a mix of articles for affiliate products, as well as getting website traffic for ads. This brings more potential people to your blog, it helps you build authority in your niche, and you can diversify your income by building two separate income sources. You should always look to diversify your income as you never know when one stream could run dry.

Use clear Call-To-Actions (CTA)

Including clear CTA’s can be the difference between a blog post that gets decent traffic and one that generates tons of conversions for you. A Call-To-Action can be a graphic, text, or button with clear instructions on what to do next.

For example, it could be a simple link that takes someone to a page where they can purchase a product, if this is clearly marked, the action that the reader should take next will be much easier to take.

Having good CTA’s placed in the right places in your blog posts is essential for earning an income with your blog.

Consistency and content

Be consistent by sticking to your niche and staying roughly within a set editorial calendar.

If you want to post one article a week, then make sure you set aside time every week to get it done. When you’re starting a blog it’s important to get content out. If you only have 10 articles, then you are reducing your chances of people finding your blog.

Aim for at least one high-quality article per week for the first 6 months to build out your site.

Provide solutions and value to your audience within your niche, this increases your consistency, you can interlink between articles, reducing your bounce rate, and eventually, you can become an authority in your niche if you keep providing value to your readers.

Focus on website traffic

This is where most bloggers falter. Writing blog posts is only about 25% of the work involved in running a blog that makes money. The remaining 75% is mostly marketing.

When you’re starting your blog, there are a number of ways to start building our SEO, like backlink outreach, guest posts, going after non-competitive keywords, etc. But SEO takes time, quite a lot of time as I mentioned earlier.

This is why I recommend focusing on Pinterest to start driving your first couple of thousand visitors to your blog. If you’re ambitious about Pinterest, it doesn’t even have to be your first thousand. You can drive hundreds of thousands of readers to your blog with Pinterest, just like Sayan from Prosmartrepreneur.

I recommend focusing on Pinterest while still putting effort into building out your blog’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page) presence.

What’s Next?

Now I hope that this article has been able to paint some light on the world of blogging and how long it may take to earn $500+ with your blog. If you’re willing to put in the work, then this can be a very rewarding pastime that you could even eventually take full-time.

To help you along the way, here are some resources I recommend for getting started:

Launch Your Blog Biz

If you’re at the very beginning of your blogging journey and finding it tough getting started. I recommend the Launch Your Blog Biz course, also from Alex and Lauren from Create & Go.

This course guides you through setting up your blog with WordPress, customizing themes, creating graphics, how to write blog posts, blogging fundamentals, building your list, and many more useful and professional tips and tutorials. In addition to the blogging stuff, you’ll also learn how to monetize your blog through affiliate marketing, sales, and email funnels, how to convert readers into buyers, using social media to get traffic to your posts, and much more.

Now that you know how long it takes to make $500+ blogging, have you started yet?