Good afternoon! I hope you’re having a good Tuesday so far! Hadley is napping and because I surprisingly knocked out my whole nap time to-do list today, I figured I’d snag a little bit of quiet time to blog. Hooray!
In the last few months I’ve started receiving the same questions about blogging more frequently from my friends, family, and blog readers, so I thought it would be fun to answer them on this space as well. 🙂
Are you actually making money off of your blog?!
I get this question about five times more than any other question regarding this blog. 🙂 The short answer is yes, I’m surprisingly making money off of this silly corner of the internet. Once I started devoting more time to my blog a couple of years ago, I quickly realized that it’s very possible to make a little bit of extra money from blogging and figured that if I was going to blog anyway, I might as well try to cover a monthly bill or two. Who wouldn’t?
I’ve learned that there’s actually a lot of money to be made by blogging certain ways, but I decided a long time ago that I would only pursue monetizing this space in a way that felt organic and fun for me. At the end of the day, if blogging here ever starts to feel more like a chore/job than a creative outlet/hobby, the money just isn’t worth it to me.
So how do you make money?
In 2015 I made money from sponsored posts, affiliate links via VigLink (pssst – that’s an affiliate link!), Google ads, and a few other smaller avenues. The money I bring in isn’t even comparable to a part-time income most months, so we’re not talking big bucks over here. 🙂
Do you still enjoy blogging?
I really love this space. Really, really, really love it. I love to read, I love to write, I love to over-share, I love to document, and I love to connect. Being a lifestyle blogger gives me the outlet to do all of the aforementioned. I also really love being a SAH mom during this season of life, so that’s why I’m not pushing too hard to make this a job because my number one job right now is being Hadley’s mom.
How do you come up with all of your post ideas?
A few times I’ve considered narrowing down the topics that I blog about, but that takes away all of the fun for me! I love writing about whatever I’m inspired to write about. I have a note in my iPhone where I am constantly jotting down blog topic ideas as they come to me. A few times a month I’ll sit down and make a rough editorial calendar, but if I have a post scheduled to write for Tuesday that I don’t feel inspired to write about, I just don’t write about it. I’m a little selfish, but as soon as this isn’t fun anymore I’m just not going to do it. 😉 You can guarantee that if I’m showing up with new posts that I’m really happy to do so and chat with you!
How many people actually read it?
A good bit! 😉 Enough that I feel continually very surprised and humbled!
What are your most popular posts?
Without a doubt, the heartfelt personal posts are my most popular. Recent posts such as this one about friendship and this one about parenting were insanely popular. It’s funny because sometimes I post something that I assume will be well-received and it nose dives, and other times I’ll post something I quickly wrote up and it’s way more popular than I would have imagined it being. You just never know.
Reader Survey!
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Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo