How to Make Money with a Minimalist Blog

When I first started my blog, it was actually a health and fitness blog. I quickly realized that those two topics often lead to people messaging you ’round the clock about how to lose weight and burn fat. That was the exact opposite of what I was going for. I wanted a place to encourage others to live a life that fit their needs and boosted their health naturally. I kind of gave up on the fitness side and just started writing about our lives. Downsizing and debt payoff and you know what? The blog took off! I started blogging in hopes of making money from home, but I had no idea how I would do that when I was encouraging people to buy less, live simpler and spend less time in front of screens!? So how did I start making money with a minimalist blog while still staying true to the minimalist in me? Keep reading and I’ll tell ya all about it.

*This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a commission on my recommendations at no cost to you.

Start your blog

The absolute first step to success with anything is to just get started. The same holds true for running a successful minimalist blog. You can’t make money if you don’t get started.

When I started my blog I chose BlueHost as a host because it is one of the best hosts and also one of the most cost affective.

One of the biggest things that holds people back from starting a minimalist blog is that they have no idea where to start. If that sounds like you, grab my How to Start a Blog tutorial and make sure to sign up for my How to Make Your First $1,000 Blogging course!

Be authentically you

No matter what, no matter what kind of blog you operate, it’s so important to be authentic to who you are. If you don’t know the first thing about something, chances are no one is going to want to learn from you or read what you have to say.

The great thing about a minimalist blog is if you are practicing it in your day to day life then you will always have something to write about. At least as long as you are living.

One of the best ways to let your audience see your authentic side is through Facebook and Instagram. Grab my Social Basics course to get tips for better social media management and interaction.

Use affiliates that align with minimalism

A major way to start earning money right away with a blog is through affiliate marketing. When I knew I wanted to talk about minimalism and money I had no idea how I was ever going to make money.

Affiliate marketing is often mistaken as being salesy. That you have to promote and peddle products in order to ever earn an income. In fact, the opposite is true. In fact, in just one month I was able to go from $0 to over $1,000 using quality affiliates that I support. Learn how to make your first $1,000.

Affiliate marketing that pays:

• Product testing and comparisons – People will purchase and review products and then encourage people to buy them. This is a great way to earn a commission especially if these products are higher end.
• Gift guides – Ever see those “80 Things to Buy Mom for Mother’s Day” gift guides? Another way to make money by selling stuff.
• Awesome things you actually recommend that don’t cost your readers a dime – Here is the sweet spot about affiliate marketing. To be honest, I didn’t really know it existed.

Check out all the Fun Sized Blogging courses

What are minimalist friendly affiliates?

So what do your minimalist readers want to hear about?

• How to simplify
• Reducing their expenses
• Living more intentionally
• Having more freedom
• Travel

These are some top ideas that you can expect a minimalist audience wants to hear about from a minimalist blog.

So what affiliate align with these things?

• Acorns Investment App – Invests your spare change for you. Get $5 when you sign up.
• Rule Your Retirement – Retirement and social security help to maximize your retirement savings.
• Lending Tree Home Refinancing – Save money monthly and reduce your interest.
• Savings Builder Savings Account – Get 2.45% interest with only $100 per month deposits!
• Save $40 on Airbnb – I mean…what traveler doesn’t want that?!

I could honestly go on and one with the huge variety of valuable, quality affiliates that I have been able to share with my readers. If you want to get a better idea of all my affiliate, heck out my Recommendations Page.

Write for your audience

When you find a high paying affiliate, don’t just start peddling it out in your posts hoping to make money.

Create quality posts that you know your reader wants to hear about. Then, see where an affiliate recommendation might fit in naturally.

How to find ideas to write about?

My favorite places to gather ideas for good blog posts are:

• Real life – Talk about what you are currently doing that might be helpful to others
• Magazines and books – Get inspired by stories or articles that you come across. Don’t plagiarize, but get inspired by things you know your audience is already wanting to hear about.
• Google – Type in something like “How to minimalist…” and Google will naturally generate some of the top searched for ideas. Now you instantly have some topics you know people want to hear about.
• Pinterest – You can use Pinterest the same way you use Google to get ideas on what to talk about in your blog posts.
• Facebook groups – Are you a part of Facebook groups that center around simple living? What do people in those groups struggle with? Is there a certain topic that comes up a lot? How could you help in these areas?

No matter where you find your inspiration, do your best to keep it focused on your readers and not on you. If you only write about your life and what you’re doing, people are going to quickly get bored.

I mean, I’m writing a minimalist blog right now and am trying to turn it into a beneficial, information packed post for you to benefit from.

Find your minimliast tribe

There are a ton of other minimalist bloggers out there who are thriving. Find them and start to build a relationship.

This is probably the part of blogging that makes me the most uncomfortable. I did not want to reach out and “find my tribe.” No sir. But slowly, we all found each other and I hope to keep collecting more along the way.

Finding a like minded group of bloggers can give you the support system you need and give you some potential places to share guest posts.

Why share guest posts?

Guest posts are talked about a lot but not everyone talks about why they are so important.

Not only do guest posts help expose you to a different audience who might not be familiar with you, but there are search engine benefits as well.

Search engines like Google see quality blogs linking to your blog and it gives your blog a boost. Like this blog gave yours a quality stamp of approval for Google.

Naturally, the same benefit happens when you have guests who post on your blog and link back to their own!

Ads aren’t the devil

When I learned I could make money through advertising on the blog, I was hesitant. After all, I’m promoting a simple living, clutter-free, debt-free way of living. I didn’t want my site filled with stuff telling people to go buy a ton of junk they don’t need!

Things got especially rough when I heared inspiring people like The Minimalists talk about how they don’t do adds. It made me feel like I would be failing as a minimalist.

Here’s the break down of why I have ads:

• Mama has got to get paid. I got into this blogging thing because I wanted to be able to have a flexible income that I could do on my own schedule from home. Ads allowed me to do that.
• Ads that generally appear on my site align with my sites topics like smart finances and simple living.
• People can easily scroll passed or X out of ads if they choose. If I deliver good, quality content, then my site is still worth their time.

Ads have helped bring in a rather consistent income for my blog which has helped allow me to purchases courses and training that taught me how to better myself and improve my blog/business.

Create your own products

Oh, did I mention the best way to earn an income through your blog? Creating your own courses!

Once you know what you audience loves, you can start creating content and courses that are specifically for them.

I dive into this area of blogging completely in my course, Fun Sized Blogging Basics as well as many other areas of running a successful blog.

So what kind of things can you create?

• eBooks
• Printouts
• Courses
• Online coaching

Depending on your type of minimalist blog and your readers you can come up with a huge variety of potential products to create.

Just make sure you give your blog some time to grow. When give your audience time to respond you’ll have a better idea of knowing what they actually want to buy from you!

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