Today’s guest on MomBoss in the Spotlight is me! I decided to ‘interview’ myself today because many of you wrote in to ask me some pretty specific details on how I monetise my blog. So without further ado, here goes.

What’s your story? What inspired you to start blogging?
My mother passed away when I was very young. I have no idea what she had gone through during pregnancy and those early motherhood days staying home looking after me and my siblings. I started this blog when my firstborn was 6 months old and I wanted to document my experience, so she’ll have something to refer to when it’s her time to be a mother.

How long have you been blogging?
Gosh! I just realised I’ve been blogging for 3 years now. Time flies when you’re having fun. My very first post was published on 16 April 2013. My blog has grown pretty fast and has consistent traffic after a year. Thanks for the support, mummies!

What is your current revenue per month?
The blog generates about $3,000 to $5,000 per month.

It took about a year and a half for me to get to this point. As my blog grows and I use opportunities (ad networks, affiliate links, advertorials, etc.) to make money, my income grows.

A lot of bigger bloggers make over 6 figures a year. If you are patient, dedicated, produce good content, and are hardworking you can make blogging profitable.

How long did it take you to start becoming profitable?
When I first started, the blog was a hobby. I hadn’t thought about monetising it until I had offers from brands and PR agencies. The first offer came in around end of 2013.

What do you enjoy most about what you do?
I like how autonomous my ‘job’ is. I get to choose which client to work with, when I work, and most importantly, my voice and opinions matter.

How do you find time to work?
I work about 20 hours per week on the blog. I work between school drop off/pick up, during nap times and I work late into the night. It used to be worse (about 50 – 60 hours per week!) when I first started. I used to publish 2 to 3 articles per week, to build up good readership and content.

Now I scale it back to only 1 to 2 articles per week. I spend the rest of the time on my other businesses – baby planning and mentoring mompreneurs. All of which stems from starting this blog and each business is currently adding to my income. I work Monday to Friday.

You can read how I spend my day-to-day here.

What were your biggest mistakes or biggest waste of time/money in your blogging journey?
My biggest mistake early on was underestimating the value of my time. I would blog for a barter. You know, a business needs their service/products reviewed and in return, I get free products for writing the review for them. Sounds like win-win, right?

That’s all well and good, but I spent a lot of time writing reviews on stuff that I don’t really need. Time that I now spend to write useful articles that my readers really want to read and getting paid to do so.

If you aspire to have a thriving blog and to make actual money, then bartering can really stop the flow of money into your blog. By doing more barter jobs, you are essentially broadcasting to the world, “I do my work for free and you shouldn’t pay me too”.

To grow your blog, you have to make money, so you can pay other people (professional coders, designers, hosting fees, staff, etc.) in return.

How did you go about starting a blog or where did you acquire knowledge on blogging?
I began by doing hours of research. I read lots of tutorials and bought a few ebooks on blogging. I also spent a lot of time reading blogs and finding out what makes a blog more successful than the others.

I also invest in educating myself as a business owner. I attend many workshops and entrepreneurship programs that have indirectly given me ideas and tips on growing my blog and readership.

What motivates you to keep writing?
Hearing from my readers! I appreciate every comments on the blog, Facebook page and emails I received from you guys. I think having a purpose right from the start helps. Also, from a vanity point of view, seeing the readership grows has been a great motivator. People outside my family read my blog!

What’s next?
I’m launching a pilot mentoship program for stay-at-home mothers who would like to earn a side income from home soon. Of course, growing a blog is a part of the course module. Whether you want to start an online store or offer your services online, you can’t not be publishing. It is how people find businesses they want to buy from, these days.

The first group of moms in my pilot program will receive one-year one-to-one mentoring session and a huge discount in exchange for feedback about the course. Do sign up if you want to be among the first to know when the course is launched!

What is your advice for a mom wanting to start a blog?
Be yourself. Write whatever that makes you happy. Don’t get overwhelmed by SEO and growing your readership yet. Also, be aware of which level of privacy you like to reveal on your blog. You may want to use your real name or you prefer to assign nicknames to protect your family members.

Also, do research. Start off doing things right, because it is hard to go back and change afterwards. For example, think carefully about your title. Choose something that you can get a .com URL for. You can get them through BlueHost or GoDaddy.

Learn all you can about marketing and social media. Don’t be afraid to self-promote. You have to market and post on social media a lot in order to grow your blog. Join blogging groups on Facebook and support one another. Just be genuine and don’t spam.

I highly recommend blogging if you are passionate about sharing information with others, love writing, enjoy being creative, are patient, can handle negative comments/feedback, and only if you are okay sharing a lot of your personal life with the online world. At the core of every successful blogger is a person who helps others.

Tweet: At the core of every successful blogger is a person who helps others.

Finally, just be sure to not shift your main focus from high quality content to money making. Without content there will not be income.

Do you have any specific questions? If so, I’d love to answer them so please comment below.

P.S. If you want to learn how to start a business from home successfully, I’m opening enrollment to my #MomBossGoal Mentorship Program very soon. Click here to sign up so that you will be notified when enrollment begins.