How I Did It: How I went full-time with my blog during a pandemic and made 10k last month

Today Kayleigh from Kayleigh Zaraa shares her blogging journey and how she turned it into her job; making 10k last month. If you enjoy this ‘How I Did It’ post do check out previous ones such as: How I went from blogger to journalist and How I Went full time as a Youtuber.

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Hi Kayleigh, when you started blogging?

I started my current blog in 2014 so 6 years ago. It wasn’t until 5 years ago that I went self-hosted or took it seriously. I wanted to start blogging as some of my university friends did it, and it was a great way to stay creative outside of my degree. Starting my current blog was the best decision of my life.

And when you turned it into a career?

Becoming a freelance blogger was something that happened out of the blue for me. It was genuinely a shock for me. My blog grew monumentally from March – September and in October I took the plunge and went freelance. Prior to March I’d been making a fair income from blogging but not the same amount as my previous full-time job.

If anything, the pandemic is the main reason I was able to make my blog a business, I used my time in isolation to learn a lot about marketing, start working on more sponsored content and delving more into affiliate marketing. As I’d previous been an events manager working 60+ hours a week I found myself so motivated in isolation to stay busy and put every waking minute into my blog.

If it wasn’t for the pandemic, I’d would have never had the time to prepare to go freelance so I don’t think it would have ever happened.

Amazing-how do you monetise your blog?

I monetise my blog in a number of ways and I recently broke this down in a monthly income report about my first 10K blogging month.

I’ve been really successful with affiliate marketing, I’ve made over £12K in affiliate sales over the past two months. This is over a variety of platforms but I make really good affiliate sales via Gumroad because my average affiliate percentage is 50-70%. I share my affiliate links via my socials and via my mailing list but a lot of my sales come from organic traffic to my top-ranking posts.

I also work with a number of PRs and regularly produce sponsored work. I’m a bit picky with what brands I will and won’t work so my income on sponsored work fluctuates month to month! But with-it being Christmas next month I’ve managed to book in some incredible Ads.

My online store also brings me good income, I currently have 3 eBooks available, one on affiliate marketing, one on pitching to brands and one which is a guide to blog monetisation (you can find Kayleigh’s books here)

ironically. My sales fluctuate month to month but I’ve made over £1200 in sales in November. This doesn’t include sales made on cyber weekend.

I do use my mailing list as a way to send out deals and affiliate links, but this is still a work in progress for me as it can be really hit or miss, it’s something that I want to grow even more in 2021.

Do you have any plans to keep growing/making money from your blog?

In 2021 I have some big plans to change up my niche a little bit and narrow it down more. I want to give my blog a little makeover if I have the chance.

I will also be launching a blog coaching service early in the new year, I’ve been working really hard on it with some beta testers and it’s worked a treat. I don’t have any plans for launching new eBooks but you never know what the year might bring or when inspiration will hit. I’ve been asked to speak at a few workshops I’m not sure if I feel comfortable with it yet as I’m working on not being camera shy!

I am also hoping to use the BoB program for affiliate marketing when it’s available in the new year. It’s a great bit of technology that is able to track your overall affiliate sales over all affiliate platforms in one place. Which I genuinely think will be game changing as it will definitely take the hard work away from calculating it yourself.

I’m trying to expand into Instagram marketing as I recently started a new Instagram account, I’ve never been big on Instagram but since starting it back up again, I’ve really enjoyed it. Although, I’m really happy with the income that my blog currently brings me and I would love to grow more if I could, but if stayed the same I wouldn’t complain.

Do you have any tips for those who want to do the same thing?

Find one route of monetising and learn everything about it, master it and then expand your monetising routes. It’s much easier than spreading yourself too thin across lots of different platforms trying to grow everything, why juggling content creation and having a life.

I would also recommend trying to invest into your blog where you can whether this is a SEO course, or a new blog theme, as these often pay off down the line but I know this isn’t a viable option for everyone right now.

Lastly, try not to focus too much on what other bloggers are earning or doing, it can be super disheartening. Everyone is at different points of their blogging journey and you don’t need to compare yours to someone else’s.