Making Dough Part 4: Blog/Vlog

In part 4 of the Making Dough series, I want to talk about an income idea that you may not think of, but it is a great one. As homesteaders, we use and build skills everyday that many would love to learn. We gain experience and knowledge that has real value to folks just starting out in this lifestyle. Even if you yourself are just getting started in this lifestyle, letting folks follow your journey and learn with you can encourage them to go for it and never give up. It can also help you by building up a strong community of people that can also share their knowledge and experiences with you.

So what is this magical income idea I am talking about? Blogging and/or vlogging. Whether you prefer to write about your experiences or share your knowledge with videos, or maybe a combination of both, this idea provides a number of ways to earn a profit.

Getting Started

This is one of the easiest income ideas to get started on. All you need is yourself and a keyboard or a camera. Even a quality smartphone can produce quality videos these days. Ok, so maybe that is not ALL you need. For a blog, you will need a website for sure. You need somewhere to post your articles. There are many great options out there. WordPress.com is a good way to start. You can start a free blog quick and easy. If you want something more customizable or powerful, get your self a decent hosting plan and build out a website there. Again, WordPress is one of the best options for this.

If you are going to do a vlog, you don’t have to have a website in the beginning, or ever (though it certainly helps). You can easily create a YouTube channel and post your videos there for free. Patreon is a great option too, and we will talk about this more in the next section. In this way, a vlog is often easier to start than a blog.

Making Money With a Blog/Vlog

I want to start off with an important caveat. Making a living with a blog or vlog takes hard work and dedication.You have to build an audience and this can be very fast and easy for some, or be slow and challenging for others. And it is not always you. But there are plenty of folks earning a good living, or at least a good supplemental income this way.

Ads are sort of the go to for monetizing your blog/vlog. If you are running a blog, get in on a few affiiate programs and place ads on your blog articles. Just make sure the ads are relevant to the folks that will be reading your blog. For example, an ad for the latest smartphone probably is not as good as an ad for useful gardening tools. For a vlog, you can select to monetize your videos in your YouTube setting, which will allow ads to play in your videos. Unfortunately with this, you do not have much choice on what ads get shown. On the other hand, YouTube does an ok job at showing viewers ads based on their interests, so it works out pretty good. The other disadvantage here is that these ads pay only if clicked on and they pay very low (typically a few cents a click). So there are proo and cons.

Related to affiliate marketing is sponsorships. This does require you to be a bit established, but once you have a decent number of subscribers, you can start reaching out to companies that make the products or provide the services that your audience will get value from. They will pay you, usually per episode or mention, to use or review their products. Just be careful with this one as going overboard on this can sometime leave a bad taste in your audiences mouth.

Patreon is another great platform because you can create multiple membership levels. So level one may be access to a few extra exclusive videos. Level two may be level one plus a personal bonus to your patrons each month. Be creative and you can come up with some pretty cool extras to encourage folks to be a Patron.Have a free plan to give folks a taste of what they can get, and many will eventually convert to a paid plan.

These are just a few of the ways to make money with a blog or a vlog. There are more, but I do not have enough space in this article to go into them.

Conclusion:

Blogging and vlogging can be a ton of fun and the fact that you can make money doing it just makes it better. Before launching your own blog or vlog, take some time to subscribe to others as this can give you tons of insight into what to to blog about, how to build a successful blog/vlog, and what people are watching/reading.

But just remember to have fun and be patient. This won’t replace your job right away.