Basically, since the birth of Blessed Beyond Crazy, we have been asked by numerous friends, family, and acquaintances if starting a blog is really worth it. People seem curious about the inner workings of our blog, i.e., time management, how we earn money, and how we started. Rather than replying to each and every inquiry, we decided to share our experiences in today’s post titled: Is it Really Worth Starting a Blog? A Look Behind the Scenes.
To help support our blogging activities, our site contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from a link on our site, we may receive a small percentage of that sale, at no extra cost to you. Blessed Beyond Crazy is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
We (Linda and Anna/ Mother and Daughter) are co-owners of a blog called Blessed Beyond Crazy which we started in Jan. of 2014. We both agree that we make a fantastic team because our strengths are the other’s weaknesses and vice versa.
Anna enjoys working with behind-the-scenes tech stuff while Linda enjoys handling any public relations. We really do have a lot of fun working on the blog together. Neither of us would enjoy blogging nearly as much without the other. It also works well for us because blogging can be very time-consuming and therefore we share the workload.
*Full disclosure: Linda has a rather large Pinterest following and this has always given us more opportunity for exposure than perhaps normal.
- Advertisements on your blog. We use Mediavine for ads, which is pretty much the best company in the entire world! We also use Amazon Associates for affiliate linking. Meaning that we link to products on Amazon, when people click on those links they get directed to Amazon’s site, if they buy anything while they are visiting Amazon after clicking on our link, we get a percentage.
- Brand collaborations/contracts (keep reading).
- Selling items on your blog (at this moment we do not sell anything on our blog, but we are considering doing so).
There are also expenses when it comes to creating a blog. The initial costs and maintenance of your domain and website hosting are just one of them. The first year we basically broke even (spent about $100; made about $100) however, the end of the second year was when things really started to take off!
Surprise! You never know who is watching you! In the blogging world, exposure is key and with that can come some pretty great benefits. Oftentimes, one thing leads to another.
Through the past few years, we have been thrilled and honored to have our Babybel Bunnies featured in the March 27th – April 1st., 2015 edition of Woman’s World. We also are honored to have our Frozen Butter Pecan Pumpkin Pie featured in the November 2015 edition of Bella Magazine.
How long does it take to create a blog post? It really depends on the post. If I use stock photos then I can create a blog post in about 2-3 hours. If I am cooking something and taking and editing my own photos then that adds several more hours. When I include a video with my recipe that I shoot myself and edit, that adds several more hours. So, a recipe blog post with photos and a video can take an entire day… or sometimes longer. I usually work on my blog posts in chunks: one day cook and take pictures, another day edit the pictures and create a rough draft, another day finish the blog post and create social media pictures. This does not include all the time it takes to promote our blog posts across all our social media channels.
When do you work on your blog? Linda types up blog posts and edits pictures and does her creating (i.e. cooking and photography) on the weeknights and weekends. Anna is a stay-at-home/homeschooling mom to four children. She works on blog posts during nap time, in the evenings, and on the weekends.
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